The Cape Reb3l

Does hate crimes have a "colour"?

2011-09-19T05:47:00.000-07:00

In South Africa a term as "hate crimes" do not exist unless of course the perpetrator is black and the victim white. When will this change and hate crimes will be dealt with equally? Do we have to go through a war first?

(8th March 2010) The South African government in the form of Minister of Police Nathi Mthethwa rightly said that “Farm and rural killings should not be politicised and all murders should be treated equally”. He further stated that “"We do not see it as anything else political or racist, we see it as just crime.”

So my question, thus the reason for this article: “Are all incidents treated equally,

and is all crime, “just crime”?

Firstly, let me give a brief summary to those who are not familiar with the South African government system. In South Africa the government system works like in any other country where there is a democracy.

The newest census figures states that 79.7% of the population is black, followed by whites 9.1% , Coloureds (mixed race) 8.8%, and the remainder 2.4% are categorised as Indian or Asian. In other words it is the opposite of the United Kingdom or United States. Minorities are protected in these 1st world countries and any attacks on minorities are dealt with in a harsh fashion by the media and government.

In South Africa, this is where things get a bit complicated for some strange reason when it comes to be a government that represent everyone on a fair and equal basis.

To start, let me give some examples of racism in South Africa. Last year an unfortunate case came to light where white, minority, students at the University of the Orange Free State shamelessly put black workers through an initiation. (The video can be found on Youtube.) The ladies were treated in a disrespectful way and as such the behaviour of these students were criticized, and rightly so. The incident was all over the news, locally and internationally. Most black people in South Africa became extremely angry which would be understandable with some ANC members using the issue to their selfish purposes, which just helped to encourage more racial hatred.

Let’s go back another year, where a young (white) boy, traumatised by a personal incident of a farm attack, took matters in his own hands by going into a township and murdering black township dwellers indiscriminately. It was a cowardly act and once again made world headlines. The boy’s actions received harsh treatment from the law and once again South Africans were up in arms and some politicians and parties played the race card. Inciting more hate.

Another year back, a white male with two black accomplices threw a worker into a lions den to get rid of him. An awful incident which should get everything justice throws at these perpetrators. The incident made international headlines and was shown as an example of a racist incident because one perpetrator was white while his accomplices that were black were disregarded. Politicians of the government were outspoken about this murder and we still hear this today, in forums, debates, as a prime example of “white on black” racism.

So you will agree with me when I say that the above examples are not crime but have a racial intend?

To South Africans and the world, the problem in South Africa seems to be a specific race.

Or at least that is what we are made to believe. My following question would be, when last, if ever, did you hear about similar incidents as above, but with the roles changed? I am not talking about “just” crime. I am talking where it’s clear racism like the examples above were involved?

Chances are you never heard anything. Ever. You also will not hear anything due to the media, political correctness and some individuals within the South African government that still think it's at 'war'. Individuals with selfish personal agendas or revenge. To say I make this up is like saying humans do not have fear. Its human. I am not saying it’s the whole SA government but to say there are no people with hidden agendas are very naïve.

I will give examples of where I see racist incidents against whites in South Africa which made an impact on me over a period of time of the unfairness of these incidents. There are so many, as to put them all here would take me days and probably leave most of you with “post traumatic stress” reading through all the stories.

So here are similar, true, stories but with the perpetrators switched.

David Jones, of the Daily Mail describes the brutal assault of a white woman, Mrs. Ame Brown, in her Johannesburg home, in the absence of her husband, who was working a night shift. Mrs. Brown's two young sons were bound at the wrists and forced at gunpoint to watch by the four-strong black gang which had broken into their flat as their mother was violated in turn by each of the gang members. Says Jones: "As the first man made way for the second, he spat out the hate-filled words Ame, an Afrikaner, will never forget: "For years you Boers always took from us. Now we're taking from you."In fact, Ame Brown worked as a care assistant looking after mainly black children at a Johannesburg home for youngsters. But her work on behalf of such an underprivileged, have-not section of the population obviously cut no ice with her assailants. Her race was all that mattered as far as they were concerned.

Lambert Theron, 20, Kempton Park Wimpy manager - CCTV filmed this young Afrikaner’s last moments: being hacked to death in a revenge-murder by two black co-workers – who accused him of ‘lying like all white men do’.

Then there is Jock de Gouveia? This elderly gentleman died after robbers dragged him for some kilometres on a rope behind his bakkie.(Pick-up)His face was totally disfigured. The police caught the three perpetrators after one was caught having Mr. de Gouveia's sim card and TV in his possession. Since Jock's been murdered many white farmers were dragged behind their "bakkies" (pic-kups) by black racists as if a "fashion" statement. Each deed more gruesome than the previous as if to out to each other.

I want to ask. Is it “just crime” because something was stolen, or is it just a convenient excuse? Do you really have to torture, humiliate, murder or even rape your victim for a cell phone or television? Is this “Just crime” Or mere an excuse by some to brush the seriousness of these crimes under the carpet?

One of the most shocking recent examples in 2009 was that of two anti-white racist crimes involving the torture-murders of Alice Lotter, 77, and her daughter Helen, 57, which caused a wave of abhorrence amongst the entire white community because of its incredible cruelty. The women, both frail, were tortured to death at their farm in Allenridge in the Free State on April 1, 2009. According to forensic evidence, the Lotter mother and daughter died excruciatingly painful deaths: First tortured by being stabbed with broken glass bottles into their vaginas; one of the women also had her breasts cut off while she was still alive – and then both women’s blood, police forensic experts found, had been used to paint the ANC’s anti-Afrikaner hate slogan ‘Kill the Boer Kill the Farmer’ on the walls of their homestead.

The list of crimes against "white" minorities, victims of murder and torture goes on.

Where is the media, other than the small column on the 3rd page of the newspaper? The national or international outcry? Where is the outcry from the government, or their leadership or lack there of to deal with these issues on a fair basis? Is it because you do not know? Do not care? Or is it because you know, and only care when it is not one of your own, yet only shout “racist” when it’s a specific race? Are we so brain washed, politically correct that we are unable as human beings to treat things in a balanced way?

Or are we so indoctrinated by mass media, becoming sheep of “popular general opinion”, or too scared, even lazy, to travel the lesser road of doing research and reaching out to people from other races? Maybe they have a point when they complain, yet are immediately silenced with the word “racist”.

During 1999 the South African infantry has been rocked by the murder of seven individuals, six officers and one civilian by Twenty-eight-year old Lt Matubela, after losing his salary from repeated misconduct, went on a rampage in the base. His targets were only whites while not shooting at any other race. What was interesting about this case was that the government said it was racism. But, not racism from Lt Matubela, but from his colleagues!

The victims becomes the ‘perpetrators’, and the perpetrator, the true racist, get away with it. What does this say about our society? Or where we are heading? Though this was a military incident it is still interesting looking at the dynamics in which ‘racism’ is sold to the people.

The majority are the ones who tolerate crime, there for we much judge the racial tolerance of criminals. At night we can only pray that we would not be murdered by somebody with a vindictive racial attitude. We do not get to vote on the attitude towards crime, yet we are told that it is not geared towards us. “It is “only” crime. We have to take the word of the majority, that criminals do not use racial bias. In other words: “Criminals are just criminals and incapable of being racists too, unless of course they are part of the minority”. Everyone else is, well, “Just criminals, doing “just crime”; this is what the statics and some government officials make us believe.

The only ones that believe these officials are the uninformed or the racists themselves that roll their heads gleefully the other way.

The media seems to believe that these allegations of hate crimes or racism are all fabricated lies. These crimes have been continuing since 1994 and are ever on the increase, to such worrying statistics that GenocideWatch.org, founded by Gregory Standon, is very concerned.

The South African government does what everyone government in power does when there is a crises, by playing it down by minimizing the seriousness of the matter. A few years ago it was also done with crime. “What crime”: it was asked by the then President Mbeki? Today we see the same cycle but this time “the what”, was replaced with “the just”.

When will people, both black and white open their eyes and see some of these murders for what it is not. Not general crime, like theft and murder but where the victim of one race is tortured by someone from another race.

It is definitely NOT “Just crime”.

The question needs to be asked. When is crime not crime anymore?

Are we as individuals, organisations, media or government so blinded by our prejudices and colour coded eye patches, that we only cry out when the victim is one race the perpetrator another?

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing” - Edmund Burke

This article probably asks more questions than to give answers, but the sole purpose is to make you think. Everyone is not as equal as some people make things out to be. Maybe you see this already, but then I might ask, why are you silent?

In order for human kind to evolve to the next level, we will need to look at these things on an equal basis and treat them as such. If not, we are just re-inventing the wheel of racism, with the roles changed.

One last question is why should these things be dealt with on an equal basis?

My answer is, if you do not, it creates more hate from one group against another because of ignorance and the lack of direction from leaders. These type of hate crimes are becoming more and more by the day because people are not educated by the government leaders or media,to realize it is not one specific group that is to blame, but that its a sickness which affects all.

Any question please feel free to email me.

Links:

“Just Crime”

http://www.news24.com/Content/SouthAfrica/News/1059/c83a40f67a0a4da0b5a5a715b380db53/08-03-2010-12-46/Farm_killings_not_political

Dr. Gregory Stanton – Founder of Genocide Watch

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Stanton

Farm Murders – Part 1 of 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3S71PbichSw

Farm murder name list:

http://censorbugbear-reports.blogspot.com/2009/12/farm-murders-names-dates-sources-s.html

and

http://censorbugbear-reports.blogspot.com/2010/02/name-lists-rural-murders-south-africa.html

Union workers throw away 'food packets' like spoiled children

2010-06-11T00:40:00.000-07:00

Disgusting!

That is how some Afrikaans newspaper readers reacted after workers from the Escom Medupi powerstation threw away their lunch packets, because they would rather want 'warm meals'.
In this photo cafeteria staff look at the food on the ground in amazement. This while many minority 'white' Afrikaners are denied food aid from the government. White Afrikaners are denied any government support on the colour of their skin. Afriforum and Solidarity said many times that being poor does not discriminate however the government refuse to help Afrikaners dying of malnutrition.

Between a 1000 and 8000 workers working for the powerstation demonstrated and threw their food packets away which consisted of a sandwich, apple, fruit juice and bottle of water. Something some people would die for just to get everyday.

These union workers were complaining for a year about getting warm meals. It is a sad state of affairs inluding how misadministration waste muncipality money and the whole SA infrastructure paying the price.

Source: BEELD

Organisation and Planning

2010-06-08T07:52:00.001-07:00

Taken from facebook as these camouflage and 'war' talk is becoming more prevailent on the internet and offline.

As they say, where there's smoke, there's a fire.Just to bring readers up to speed this is what is going on about what is being planned after the Soccer World Cup:

SOUTH AFRICAN authorities have secretely kickstarted xenophobic attacks on foreigners and they are on course to launch Zimbabwean-style violent farm invasions after the FIFA 2010 World Cup which begins on Friday, this week.

A secret committee made up of ANC and government security agents is coordinating the country's post FIFA 2010 World Cup cleansing activities and it is already in full swing, identifying targets, and preparing use of hit squads, highly placed sources in South Africa and Zimbabwe said.

Together with xenophobic attacks, South Africa’s ruling party ANC is planning Zimbabwean style land invasions after the football World Cup.

Zimbabwe's military and Robert Mugabe's War Veterans of the liberation struggle have been ropped-in for crucial frontline back-up for the violent programme.

ANC's Youths who have been undergoing training in Zimbabwe, at the army's Staff College have completed their rigorous training and they will soon be deployed throughout the South African provinces ready to kickstart a State assisted land invasion which will be reported in the State media as spontaneous.

Controversial African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) President, Julius Malema, has already visited Zimbabwe for a a briefing by Robert Mugabe and he had a series of meetings with Zanu PF and Zimbabwe government's security agents.

Source. Zimbabwe Mail

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Pygmies being eaten in Congo

2010-05-26T13:19:00.000-07:00

The United Nations is investigating reports of cannibalism by rebels in north-eastern Congo, where the slaughter of civilians continues unabated despite peace agreements.

The Congolese call themselves a "cursed people". With a war that has left an estimated 3.5 million dead, the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have probably suffered the worst massacres of any single nation since the Second World War.

Manodje Mounoubai, a spokesman for the UN mission in Congo, told the Associated Press yesterday that during the past week UN investigators had been looking into reports that Congolese rebel troops had killed and eaten Pygmies. The rebels of the Congolese Liberation Movement (MLC) and Congolese Rally for Democracy-National are apparently killing the Pygmies if they return from hunting expeditions without food.

An official with a rival rebel group, the Congolese Rally for Democracy-Liberation (RCD-ML), said: "We hear reports of MLC and RCD-N commanders feeding on sexual organs of Pygmies, apparently believing this would give them strength. We also have reports of Pygmies being forced to feed on cooked remains of their colleagues."

As he arrived at a centre for displaced people at Eringeti, Cwinyai Ushuto said: "We have suffered a lot. Why does the world keep on standing back when Congolese are being slaughtered like sheep in an abattoir?" The centre is near rebel-controlled Beni, about 1,250 miles north-east of the capital, Kinshasa, and about 30 miles from the Ugandan border.

More than 40,000 people were crammed into the centre when I recently visited. Tearfund, a British charity, provides relief supplies.

Although none of the refugees I spoke to mentioned cannibalism explicitly, their tales of atrocities by the rampaging rebel groups were no less shocking.

Mr Ushuto, 41, fled fierce fighting in Mongwalu, one of the many towns in the north-east under siege from the different factions of rebel groups backed by foreign armies. He led 20 people in the vanguard of a group of 3,500 women and children. By the time he arrived at Eringeti, having walked 60 miles through tropical forests in heavy rain and fog, only nine were alive. The other 11 succumbed to hunger and disease.

Many more were expected to die in the group behind them. "We pray for those who die along the way and leave their corpses resting on tree trunks. They become meat for the vultures as we have no means to bury them," said Mr Ushuto, who lost all his property to the rebels and was separated from his wife and six children. He carried a bottle of cooking oil, which he spread on his feet to walk faster or run when fleeing the rebels.

Katungu Mwenge, 25, saw her daughters aged seven and nine gang-raped and her husband hacked to death by a rebel faction. She fled with her four other children to Eringeti, where they were using banana tree leaves for blankets under a leaking plastic roof.

Tetyabo-Tebabo Floribert, 18, was badly traumatised. Rebels decapitated his mother, three brothers and two sisters. Anyasi Senga, 60, fled her village with 40 others and lived in the bush for two months, surviving on wild fruits and roots. Ambaya Estella's three children and her husband were killed by the rebels, who killed most of the inhabitants of her village using axes and machetes. "They held guns but they preferred to decapitate people with axes and knives, probably to make the deaths more painful," she said.

She managed to escape with her orphaned grandchildren during the stampede and walked to Eringeti.

The violence comes despite rebels signing a power-sharing peace deal on 17 December with the government. President Joseph Kabila has raised suspicions in the rebel camp by reportedly deploying large numbers of troops near rebel-controlled territory.

Forcesfrom the countries involved in the Congo war – Zimbabwe, Angola, Namibia, Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi – are allegedly still at large. They are backing the tribes they see as the best proxies to facilitate their continued plunder and theft of the DRC's vast mineral resources. The fighting between the Hema and Lendu tribes in north-eastern DRC has been the most ferocious.The six countries claim to have withdrawn their forces. But first-hand accounts by displaced Congolese suggest they are still there. Mr Ushuto said: "I can tell you that the Ugandans and Rwandese soldiers are still here and fighting to get our resources."

The Rally for Congolese Democracy (RCD), which formed in 1998 to drive the late president Laurent Kabila from power, subsequently splintered into at least four rebel factions, the RCD-KML, RCD-National, RCD-Goma and UPC, controlling different cities in eastern Congo.

Jean Louis Kyaviro, the secretary general of the RCD-KML, said his group intended to use captured Ugandan prisoners as evidence that foreign forces still fought in the Congo.

To support Tearfund's work with refugees in the Congo, phone 0845 355 8355.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/rebels-eating-pygmies-as-mass-slaughter-continues-in-congo-despite-peace-agreement-601088.html

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Rebels' mutilation campaign

2010-05-24T04:08:00.000-07:00

Nyangara - Mboli Hundele, 31, has a pretty, fine-featured face, but it has been atrociously mutilated by Ugandan rebels who slashed off her lips in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

Hundele was caught on April 13 by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), one of the most brutal rebel movements in the world, which is active in this remote part of the DRC and neighbouring Central African Republic and South Sudan.

The rebels "encircled me by surprise", Hundele said at the hospital in Nyangara, in the northern end of the northeast Orientale Province.

They caught her when she was working in the fields about 3km from Nyangara.

She cried "Help, Jesus, I am dead". When they questioned her, all she could answer was "Jesus".

"They said that I talked too much, that I would have to be quiet," the young woman said, trembling and speaking with difficulty through a large bandage that exposed her teeth and gums.

Then "one of them took some pincers, pulled on my lips and cut them with a knife. They also cut off one of my ears. Then they told me to run", she added.

Such mutilations in which the lips and an ear are cut off have been the lot of several dozen people in the region, according to a local member of parliament.

These actions were "a distinctive sign of LRA attacks in the early 1990s in the north of Uganda, but they had not been reported before in the Congo", said the US-based Human Rights Watch in a report published in March.

Everything happens very fast

The rights group accused the LRA of massacring 321 civilians in four days in mid-December in the Nyangara territory.

In its report, HRW said that the Ugandan rebels had accused six civilians of divulging the LRA's location to the Congolese army. The rebels said they would leave a "mark to tell the population to stop talking about the LRA" and they did so by slashing people's lips and ears off with razors.

According to the International Crisis Group (ICG), which carries out conflict analysis, "the killings and mutilations are part of the strategy of terror by the LRA aimed at dissuading survivors from co-operating with the Ugandan army (which is present in the region) and other national armies".

Resorting to such methods as mutilation is intended to "leave traces and instill a sense of horror" among the population, said Jean-Charles Dupint, the chief of the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Oriental Province.

"To leave somebody scarred for life is, in extreme cases, worse than a dead person," Dupint argued.

The rebels "have the practice of surrounding the victim before attacking. Everything happens very fast. In two minutes, you find the person mutilated or dead," said Tade Muhinde, a resident of Nyangara.

The chairman of a grouping of local civil society organisations, Domain Sametu, stressed that the attacks took place in districts on the outskirts of Nyangara, where people live because the army is present. "But that is not enough. People are still terrified."

Josette, a thin 21-year-old survivor of the atrocities committed by the LRA in December, who now lives in Nyangara, remains traumatised: "We live in fear. Everyone is waiting for their turn."

- AFP

http://www.news24.com/Africa/News/Rebels-mutilation-campaign-20100514

Mob Rule Africa 101: Quick Justice. No Mercy. No Rules!

2010-05-23T08:45:00.000-07:00

NATIONAL Police commissioner, General Bheki Cele condemned Wednesday night’s mob killing near Mthatha in which two youths were torched.

Cele, who was addressing a media conference in Mthatha yesterday after a two-day visit to the province, said those who were involved in mob killings would be arrested and face the might of the law.

Cele made the remarks following a mob killing at Mbozwana village where two youths, Sithandile Songwaxa, 25, and Manono Nkwahla, 23, were torched by a mob of about 100 people who accused them of carrying out robberies and rapes in their area.

The mob believed that the two men were among four who had attacked two villages, robbing three homesteads and raping two sisters, aged 12 and 18.

Cele said since Wednesday night 56 people had been arrested for the killings, and of the 56 arrested, 38 appeared at the Mthatha Magistrate’s Court yesterday on charges of murder.
They were each granted R500 bail and were all represented by one attorney, Thanduxolo Qina .
Their case was postponed to September 9, for further investigations.

The remaining 18 will appear on Monday at the Bityi Periodical Court. “I have been informed of it (the mob killing) and told that 56 people have been arrested. Indeed this is one area we have to look into, hence we have to work on our responses with communities,” Cele said. He warned that police would act against anyone taking part in mob justice.

Meanwhile, Cele reassured South Africans that the Fifa 2010 Soccer World Cup would be a safe one despite this week’s media reports of a planned al-Qaeda terrorist attack.

“As South African Police Service (SAPS) we are satisfied that we are on course to provide a safe and successful World Cup,” Cele said.

He said their intelligence team was working around the clock to provide information that might suggest a threat to the security of the country.

“So far we have nothing to worry about ,” Cele said.

Cele, who was accompanied by the country’s top policemen, said their visit to Mthatha had included visits to Ngangelizwe, Mthatha Central and Ngcobo police stations
“The meeting you see here is made up of the deputy commissioners, provincial and divisional commissioners.
“This is a top management meeting of the SAPS.
“We have taken a decision that now we will meet at provinces, the Eastern Cape was the first province,” Cele said.

He said this was an attempt by the national office to be in contact with police stations and have first-hand information on the crime situation in a particular province.

Their next meeting will take place at the end of July in Mpumalanga. — By LUBABALO NGCUKANA
Mthatha Bureau lubabalon@dispatch.co.za

http://www.dispatch.co.za/article.aspx?id=404024

How can you trust a police force that hates the minority it is supposed to protect?

2010-05-23T08:07:00.001-07:00

This is one recent story of many.

Johannesburg - A police constable has been arrested for attempted murder, North West police said on Sunday.

Lieutenant-General Lesetja Ephraim Beetha said the constable, aged 34, was allegedly part of a group who attempted to rob a farm outside Schweizer-Reneke on Friday.

The farmer apparently heard gunshots on his premises and saw three people entering through the gate.

After another gunshot was fired, the farmer drew his own firearm and shot back.

The suspects fled on foot.

Neighbouring farmers began a search for the robbers.

SAP equipment found

They stopped a woman who was driving a bakkie on the Hartsfontein gravel road.

The police then arrived on the scene and searched the vehicle.

"In possession of the driver, police found her police identification certificate."

A gun, and a police-issue torch and two-way hand radios were amongst the items recovered by the police.

A police appointment certificate belonging to a person who resigned from the force in February was also found.

The vehicle was registered in the name of the police officer who resigned.

The constable, stationed at Florida crime prevention unit, was immediately arrested and detained.

On Saturday, police arrested another person believed to be part of the robbery gang.

"We have been informed that the third suspect - [the] resigned police official - will be handed over to the police in due course by his legal representative."

The two arrested will appear on a charge of attempted murder at the Schweizer-Reneke Magistrate's Court on Monday.

- SAPA

http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Cop-arrested-after-farm-attack-20100523

Man hospitalised over 'muti attack'

2010-05-22T12:13:00.000-07:00

Johannesburg - A badly mutilated man, who said he was a muti attack survivor, was admitted to an Eastern Cape hospital, provincial department of health said on Saturday. Muti is the removal of body parts for 'witch doctor's' so they can use it in 'remedies'. This is done preferably from a liver human being, especially children. It is also believed the more the pain, and removing it while alive, the 'better' the potion.

Spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo said the man was admitted at the hospital, which cannot be named for his safety, on Friday night.

"One of his kidneys, [and] testicles had been removed. He also has a big septic wound on his right leg," Kupelo said.

He said the man alleged that a family member removed his body parts to use for muti.

The man was taken for a psychiatric assessment, and found to be mentally stable.

He was in a serious, but stable condition, while police investigated.

- SAPA

http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Man-hospitalised-over-muti-attack-20100522

To release, or not to release? That is the question?

2010-05-22T11:03:00.000-07:00

He sat placidly in his prison-issue jumpsuit, a sombre expression fixed on his face as the harsh detention centre lights reflected off his shiny, dark skin, highlighting an old, four-inch scar down the centre of his forehead.

He did not speak. Or even move. He was so still, in fact, the motion-sensitive video camera pointing at him in the Central East Correctional Centre in Lindsay repeatedly shut off as it failed to detect any movement. It suggested the patience of a man who has, so far, shown remarkable resilience in saying and doing little. He insists his name is Andrea Jerome Walker, born in Wilmington, Del., on Jan. 22, 1973. The governments of Canada and the United States are adamant he is not.

That places him in a bizarre state of limbo: Until officials know who he is, they cannot deport him; until they can deport him, they will not release him. Since Sept. 20, 2006, he has been in jail, so far serving the equivalent of a manslaughter sentence, although he is charged with no crime. And there is no end in sight. He is the unknown man.

"Subject has no family anywhere in the world. There is no one who knows him and no one would be able to vouch for him," says an internal government report on his case. "He claims to be entirely alone in this world."

Canadian officials have twice sent his fingerprints to Haiti seeking his identity. They have asked officials in Angola, Ivory Coast, Cameroon and Guinea for help. A Nigerian diplomat visited him in jail, asking him trick questions. U.S. Homeland Security officials searched yearbooks, mug shots and government databases.

None of it has helped.

When given the chance to plead his case with an interested reporter visiting him in prison last week, he declined. Clearly he is no Hurricane Carter, anxious to get word of his ridiculous predicament to the outside world.

Instead, he seems content to sit in his cell, behind coils of razor wire, high fences and towering spotlights with no end in sight.

The stakes are high. Immigration officials fear letting him out will encourage others to adopt a similarly defiant stance. If he is released and not deported it will make a mockery of Canada's immigration law.

From Mr. Walker's perspective, his imprisonment is a travesty of justice, a Kafka-esque, indefinite incarceration without evidence of any crime; mixed with the outrage of being stripped of an identity and citizenship he insists is his.

Then there is another concern.

If he is not who he says he is, then what fate does he fear - should his true identity be revealed - that makes wasting away in a crowded jail such a palatable alternative? What awaits him if his identity is discovered?

What might he have done?

Mr. Walker - as the government continues to call him despite declaring he is not really Mr. Walker - arrived in Canada from New York as a visitor in April 2005. He carried a U.S. passport and was told at the border to leave within nine days.

Instead, he lived here quietly until, in September 2006, he was approached in downtown Toronto by two police officers on bicycles.

"They found two little pieces of cocaine in my pocket," he told an immigration detention review hearing in 2006, back when he was more talkative. "My lawyer told me to plead guilty and then I would go back to the United States."

The conviction did make him subject to deportation and when Canada Border Services Agency officials arrived to collect him at the police station it seemed a routine case.

But questions about his identity immediately arose. When CBSA officers arrived, Toronto police were already asking Mr. Walker why he looked older than his passport said he was. He said there was a typo and it should say 1963 not 1973, according to a CBSA summary of his case.

When asked why he spoke with a non-American accent, he said his mother was born in Cameroon. When a CBSA officer spoke to him in French, Mr. Walker seemed more fluent than in English, saying he learned French and Spanish during travels abroad.

The more Mr. Walker spoke, the less his story was believed.

A few weeks later, officials from the U.S. consulate in Toronto spent an hour with Mr. Walker in the Don Jail.

"We do not believe him to be a U.S. citizen," they wrote in a U.S. Department of State memo. They said he spoke with a thick accent, either Caribbean or French sub-Saharan African.

"He claims his mother forced him into alcohol abuse at an early age and then gave him to some woman in New York City to raise. He could only offer the woman's name being something like ‘Marie'," the memo says.

He told the Americans he learned French during a visit to France and then, at another point, that he learned it from a Caribbean girlfriend in New York. Her name was also something like "Marie."

U.S. officials found no record of Mr. Walker prior to 2001 and promptly revoked his passport.

About the only thing everyone agrees on is that he is not a Canadian, but without travel documents or a country of origin CBSA has nowhere to send him.

"They don't believe that I'm a U.S. citizen," Mr. Walker complained to the Immigration and Refugee Board, "because everyone says I have a French accent."

At his first IRB detention review in October 2006, he tried to explain: He grew up "with a woman who was a friend of my mother, a Puerto Rican.

"Even when I was in New York I used to go to church. I study Bible school in Spanish, so that's why I have a funny accent." Yet, at another hearing, he said he learned French from his mother.

Such inconsistencies have not helped him. That IRB adjudicators have cited them as reasons for his detention may explain why he stopped talking.

In April 2007, a CBSA officer tried again.

"I offered Mr. Walker a piece of paper to write down his name and date of birth and any other information with which to assist us in returning him to his country of residence," the officer says in a sworn affidavit.

"I found Mr. Walker to be completely unco-operative."

At a 2007 IRB hearing, adjudicator Harry Adamidis ruled that Mr. Walker must remain behind bars, saying: "You have been detained a very, very long time, and also at this point there does not appear to be a solution to allow you to be released sometime in the foreseeable future.

"However, given the fact that you've been unco-operative with regards to your identity, I have to agree with the minister that you shouldn't be rewarded by that with release."

Before he ran afoul of Canada's drug laws, little is known about Mr. Walker. He had a troubled early life in Delaware, he said, never knowing his father, and his mother giving him away.

"I went to the Bronx when I was a little boy," he said at an IRB hearing in 2008. From the age of seven he lived on the streets of New York and never went to school, he said, explaining why he has no family or school records to support his story.

Mr. Walker said he spent several years in the U.S. merchant marine travelling the world, and yet there are no records of him earning an income, joining a union or even of having a passport at that time.

His first request for a U.S. passport in 2001 was denied for lack of documentation. He later returned with more ID cards and was issued a passport in 2002.

"None of these documents is convincing proof of identity and all of them could be obtained on the strength of a borrowed or stolen birth certificate," a CBSA report says.

According to a records search by the National Post, the address on Mr. Walker's temporary New York driver's licence is that of the Door of Salvation Ministries, a Christian-run soup kitchen in the Bronx.

A spokesman at the mission said it was there long before 2001 when Mr. Walker's ID was issued but could not confirm if anyone with that name ever stayed there.

"I can't help you, man," the spokesman said. "I don't know that name."

Once he had a passport, Mr. Walker travelled to Spain in 2004 but was returned to the United States under a deportation order after a drug conviction. Shortly after, he came to Canada.

His connection to Christian missions continued. Almost immediately after arriving, he joined the Follower's Mission, a Christian outreach serving addicts and outcasts in Toronto's Queen and Sherbourne area, the Post has learned.

He made little impact on staff and his name brings back no memories, said Young Wha Kang, the mission's founder.

"That was five years ago," she said, apologizing.

Mr. Walker's arrest in 2006, that triggered his predicament, took place around the corner from the mission's front door.

Despite declaring his life for Jesus Christ - "I'm a believer. I'm a Christian," he told the IRB in 2008 - he has a long history with drugs.

When Canada sent his fingerprints to the United States, officials did find one hit in their system, but it was not for a Mr. Walker. They matched a man arrested for drug possession in New York City in 1993. The name of the man who served the sentence on Rikers Island was Michael Gee Hearns, born in Haiti on Sept. 14, 1966.

Mr. Walker admited he was that convict but said the name was just an alias, derived from "Mike Gee," an American hip-hop artist.

"I love his music, that's why I use his name," Mr. Walker said.

"I never been in Haiti. I don't even know where Haiti is."

Even that clue has not helped. Haitian authorities have not been able to identify him, even with a photograph, fingerprints and the alternate name.

In the meantime, CBSA arranged for a specialist with the Nigerian High Commission in Ottawa to interview Mr. Walker. He spent half an hour with him, hoping he would reveal telling details through trick questions.

His assessment? Mr. Walker is definitely from Africa but not from Nigeria. Nor is he from the north or the south of the continent. That leaves a lot of troubled central African nations still in the mix.

Since then, CBSA has asked several African states for help but received no answers.

After three years and eight months of being locked up, Mr. Walker only grunted his acknowledgement to the IRB adjudicator who convened his 52nd detention review earlier this month.

With his 5-foot-7, 170-pound frame slumped in a chair, his only discernible movement over the video-link from jail during the hour-long hearing was the occasional scratch of his nose or rub of his scarred forehead.

The Refugee Law Office, a division of Legal Aid, has taken up his perplexing case, appealing his detention to the Federal Court of Canada.

"I accept the [government's] submissions that [Mr. Walker] is not whom he claims to be and that he has been uncooperative in refusing to reveal his true identity," Justice Richard G. Mosley ruled last month. However, he also ruled that the length of Mr. Walker's detention was not adequately taken into account and so he ordered a fresh review.

At that fresh hearing, Karen Stewart, his public defender, argued for Mr. Walker's release.

"This detention has become indefinite a long, long time ago. There is no prospect of CBSA resolving this," she said. "Mr. Walker has been consistent over three years that he is a U.S. citizen.

"We are truly at an impasse here."

IRB adjudicator Andrew Laut ruled Mr. Walker must remain behind bars.

"He is very strongly motivated... not to be removed to his country of origin as he has not yet revealed that country," said Mr. Laut.

In a bid to break that impasse, CBSA is releasing his photograph and description, seeking help from the public in learning any information about him, including any family members, alternate names, addresses or "any organizations, military or educational institutions" he was associated with.

A CBSA phone line - 905-405-3887 - and email address - walker@cbsa-asfc.gc.ca - has been established to receive tips.

In the meantime, the IRB will assess Mr. Walker's detention every 30 days. His next hearing is set for June 2, when he will likely seek release yet again.

"Send me back to the States," Mr. Walker pleaded at a past hearing.

"I'm not going to be in jail all my life."

Perhaps not.

South African Muslim bid to ban cartoon fails

2010-05-21T07:04:00.000-07:00

Article by the BBC:

A bid by a Muslim group in South Africa to stop the publication of a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad has failed.The drawing by Jonathan Shapiro, known as Zapiro, shows the prophet on a psychiatrist's couch bemoaning his followers' sense of humour failure. He drew it in response to a Facebook group inviting drawings of the Prophet Muhammad, which prompted Pakistan to ban the website for being "un-Islamic".

Zapiro told the BBC he did not want to be "cowed into submission". 'World Cup threat'

South Africa's Council of Muslim Theologians, known as Jamiatul Ulama, says the cartoon in South Africa's Mail and Guardian newspaper is offensive. It argued in court papers that the timing could be a threat to the football World Cup. But the High Court ruled that the cartoon had already been put into the public domain on the Mail and Guardian's website. Some Islamic traditions ban depictions of the Prophet or Allah and worldwide protests broke out in 2006 after a Danish paper published cartoons of Muhammad. At the time, Jamiatul Ulama successfully stopped the republication of the Danish cartoons in South Africa's Sunday Times.

Mr Shapiro defended his cartoon in a BBC interview.

"The cartoon is not particularly harsh it's got an element of pathos in it," he told the BBC Network Africa programme. "It's almost an appeal to people to say, 'Come on, get real, get into the 21st Century.'"

He said that during the protests of 2006, he decided not to draw any cartoons of the prophet.
"I'm not going to do it for the hell of it , I wasn't trying to be deliberately provocative - this time round I joined an international campaign. "And I do not want to be cowed into submission like so many people have on freedom of expression issues," he said.
The Mail and Guardian's editor Nic Dawes said "no cartoon is as insulting to Islam as the assumption Muslims will react with violence". He added: "If we had to pull every Zapiro cartoon that offended someone, we wouldn't have any Zapiro cartoons in the newspaper."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/8696763.stm

Are remnants of the Zimbabwean 5th Brigade involved in cross border incidents?

2010-05-21T04:22:00.000-07:00

According to the BBC website the North Korea will not be preparing for the World Cup finals with a visit to Zimbabwe due to fears that there will be more than just soccer players on the flight.

The Zimbabwe government had suggested the Asian side would stop in the country on their way to South Africa.

That sparked protests in Matabeleland, where rights groups say a North Korean-trained army unit killed thousands of people during the 1980s.The army soldiers were known as the 5th Brigade that were used to bring about 'social change' in Zimbabwe.

In October 1980, President Robert Mugabe signed an agreement with the North Korean President, Kim Il Sung that they would train a brigade for the Zimbabwe National Army. In August 1981, 106 North Koreans arrived to train the new brigade.

The members of the Fifth Brigade were drawn from 3500 ex-ZANLA troops, including two unintegrated ZANLA battalions, at Tongogara Assembly Point. There were a few ZIPRA troops in the unit initially, but they were withdrawn before the end of the training. It has been reported that there were also some foreigners in the unit, possibly Tanzanians. The training of Fifth Brigade lasted until September 1982, when Minister Sekeramayi announced training was complete.

The Fifth Brigade was different from all other army units in that it was not integrated into the army. It was answerable only to the Prime Minister, and not to the normal army command structures. Their codes, uniforms, radios and equipment were not compatible with other army units. Their most distinguishing feature in the field was their red berets, although many reports note that on occasions Fifth Brigade soldiers would operate in civilian clothes.

References:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/world_cup_2010/8692813.stm

http://www.zimeye.org/?p=16964

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimbabwean_Fifth_Brigade

"Corrective Rape" in South Africa

2010-05-20T09:49:00.000-07:00

“Violence against women and girls continues unabated in every continent, country and culture. It takes a devastating toll on women’s lives, on their families, and on society as a whole. Most societies prohibit such violence — yet the reality is that too often, it is covered up or tacitly condoned.” Ban Ki Moon, UN Secretary General.

The following is an excerpt from a report by ActionAid.org

“They tell me that they will kill me, they will rape me and after raping me I will become a girl. I will become a straight girl.” Zakhe, 23, Soweto.

As we mark International Women’s Day 2009, across the world millions of women continue to be murdered, raped and assaulted with impunity. The UN estimates that at least one in every three women has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in her lifetime.1

Violence crosses boundaries of class, race, age and sexual orientation. It causes injury and death, but also prevents women and girls from getting an education, accessing health care, earning a living, to participating in their communities and wider society.

In South Africa, no woman is safe from violence. There are an estimated 500,000 rapes, hundreds of murders and countless beatings carried out every year. Shockingly, it is estimated that almost half of all South African women will be raped during their lifetime.2 And for every 25 men bought to trial for rape in South Africa, 24 walk free.

This shameful record of male domination and violence has helped build an increasingly brutal and oppressive culture, in which women are forced to conform to gender stereotypes or suffer the consequences.

As part of this oppression, the country is now witnessing a backlash of crimes targeted specifically at lesbian women, who are perceived as representing a direct and specific threat to the status quo. This violence often takes the form of ‘corrective’ rape – a way of punishing and ‘curing’ women of their sexual orientation.

In early 2009 ActionAid carried out interviews with 15 survivors of these crimes and the organisations that work with them. They told us their own stories, and many more of friends who had died.

Whilst we are mindful of the fact that

hate crimes – especially of a sexual nature – are rife, it is not something that the South African government has prioritised as a specific project.”

Statement from South Africa’s National Prosecuting Authority, January 2009.

South Africa has one of the most progressive constitutions in the world, pledging equality for all citizens and protection from discrimination on the grounds of gender, race and sexual orientation. But these ideals are rarely translated into everyday practice.

The Equality Act, passed in 2000, specifically outlaws so-called ‘hate crimes’, where people are targeted purely because of their identification as part of a group. Although in theory this includes crimes on the basis of sexual orientation, in practice the only cases that have been brought to trial are on the basis of race

and gender.

This failure to implement the promises of the constitution in defence of lesbians and gays, and a legal and criminal justice system that is largely unresponsive to the problem, means that attackers are rarely brought to justice.

And a culture of rape is already being passed down to younger generations of South African men. Last year a report by South Africa’s Human Rights Commission expressed alarm at the “growing phenomenon of ‘corrective’ rape” in schools across the country, with young boys believing that lesbian girls need to be raped in order to ‘correct’ their sexual orientation.6

Support groups now say that rape is fast becoming the most widespread hate crime against lesbian women in townships across South Africa.7 One Cape Town lesbian and gay support group says it is dealing with 10 new cases every week, with numbers rising fast.8

And it is black lesbians from townships – who lack sufficient support systems and are already disadvantaged by cultural, economic and social discrimination – who are particularly at risk. Gay rights group Triangle’s 2008 research revealed that, while 44% of white lesbians from the Western Cape lived in fear of sexual assault, 86% of their black counterparts felt the same.9

“Every day you feel like it’s a time-bomb waiting to go off, you don’t have freedom of movement, you don’t have your space to do as you please, you are always scared and your life always feels restricted. As women and as lesbians we need to be very aware that it is a fact of life that we are in danger, all women are in danger.” Phumla, Soweto, Johannesburg.

Please read the full report here: http://www.actionaid.org.uk/doc_lib/correctiveraperep_final.pdf

Service Delivery Protests - (19 May 2010)

2010-05-20T06:47:00.000-07:00

Protests - South Of Pretoria, South Africa

Virginia Keppler en Cornél van Heerden

About 5000 violent protesters south of Pretoria was dispersed with rubber bullets after they blocked the entrances of the suburb OlievenhoutBosch with burning tyres, rocks and garbage.

The protesters, including school children, were unhappy about empty promises over housing and service delivery. The ANC councils in South Africa over recent years stagnated due to corruption and mismagement. A rubber bullet hit a boy against the head but he was not seriously injured.

The protesters burned and broke down the shops of hawkers selling their goods with young children partaking in the chaos. Capt. Agnes Huma, Police spokesperson, said that people are very unhappy about service delivery and they want houses.

Nobody in the neighbourhood when to shcool or work because they were unable to leave the neigbourhood over the blocked entrances.

Journalists also have to flee to safety as a vehicle by Radio 702 was damaged. The police arrested 21 people and said the situation in under control, yet tense.

http://blogs.beeld.com/foto24

ANC planning Zimbabwe style land invasions after World Cup

2010-05-20T04:55:00.000-07:00

HARARE - South Africa’s ruling party ANC is planning Zimbabwean style land invasions after the FIFA 2010 World Cup, amid reports Zimbabwe’s Zanu PF and War Veterans Association will provide crucial support for the programme, sources in Zimbabwe said on Monday.

Zimbabwean War Veterans and Robert Mugabe's thugs forcing a white commercial farmer off his property

Controversial African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) President, Julius Malema, is set to visit Zimbabwe for a series of meetings with Zanu PF counterparts.

The crucial visit will go a long way in exchanging ideas and preparatory stages for both logistics and mobilisation for sporadic land invasions across the country.

A member of the Zanu PF security department told our reporter that the basis of Malema’s visit to Harare is a follow up to a secret discussion between President Mugabe and his South African counterpart Jacob Zuma, three weeks ago.

The source said when South African President Jacob Zuma visited Zimbabwe during the coalition talks between Zanu PF and the MDC, he discussed at length, matters ranging from the British media’s personal attacks on his private life during the recent visit to the United Kingdom and the need to expedite South African land reform.

It is at this stage that Mugabe converted Zuma into his camp, and the two leaders agreed to join hands in actively assisting each other in the land reform and indigenisation process.

This week, a high-level delegation in the South African security forces, intelligence and media with close links to the ruling party ANC are travelling to Zimbabwe and they will spend three months training at the Zimbabwe National Army’s Staff College.

Senior Zimbabwe National army officers who led Zimbabwe’s land invasions will train their South African counterparts and impart knowledge based on their experiences.

A source said, South African land invasion factor is the reason why Zimbabwean President Mugabe has identified Jabulani Sibanda as the prefered choice to lead the Zimbabwe War Veterans Association in the association’s reported power struggles.

Sibanda's speaks Ndebele and this is an important factor in his abilities to communicate with South Africa's ANC land invadors, the source said.

Zanu PF Youth League national secretary for administration Leslie Ncube said Malema was visiting Zimbabwe to discuss and share ideas on "youth empowerment and revolutionary tactics".
"The ANCYL president will be arriving next week. It will be a three-day visit and other executive members of the ANC youth league will accompany him," Ncube said.

The Zanu PF youth official said the ANC and his party have enjoyed cordial relationships that date back to the liberation struggle adding these ties would be further strengthened by Malema’s visit.

"We share the same revolutionary history and they (visiting delegates) are coming to learn from our agrarian reform and indigenisation.

"The ANC is about to expand its land reforms, and we will share advice and discuss how resources should be equitably distributed to the youth and also how they can benefit from natural resources such as mining," Ncube said.

Speaking to South African media, Gugule Nkwinti, the Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform accused white farmers of scuttling the land reform programme by frustrating government’s willing buyer willing seller policy through inflating prices.

He warned South Africa risks sinking into chaos as the patience of new black farmers is running thin as evidenced by sporadic farm invasions.

"If South Africans who own land　 don’t recognise the reality on the ground　 and can no walk the mind with government in terms of what is proposed right now then in fact they are the ones who will be responsible for creating conditions of chaos which can be worse than what has been witnessed in Zimbabwe," said Nkwinti.

Africa’s economic giant needs R 75 billion to acquire 80 million hectares of land by 2014 but this target will not be reached as national coffers are running dry as a result of a litany of service delivery issues that needs to be addressed such as a long housing back log, water and electricity deliveries to millions of households.

Nkwinti said the South African government is working on a policy aimed at addressing the land inequalities urging farm owners to be more flexible in land redistribution negotiations.

He said the new policy is about preventing going the disastrous way of distributing land like the one witnessed in Zimbabwe where President Robert Mugabe’s government forcibly took land from previous white owners in chaotic scenes that left many dead since the inception of the programme in 2000.

"This about preventing Zimbabwe," said Nkwinti.

He did not elaborate on whether his government will consider amending the constitution to enable it to forcibly take land like what happened in their northern neighbours where the government had to pass legislation to change the constitution allowing it to compulsorily acquire land from white farmers.

Nkwinti said just like in Zimbabwe where about 4000 white farmers owned most of the country’s arable land, land in South Africa is concentrated in the hands of a few land owners, most of whom are foreigners.

"We have a major monopoly of land ownership in South Africa and we must break that monopoly," said Nkwinti.

Nkwinti earlier this month told parliament that the government was adopting a "use it or lose it" policy to encourage increased production capacity but his weekend comments appear to be a shift towards a more radical policy.

Thousands of poor black South Africans, most of whom still live in abject poverty because of the apartheid era system are waiting for land promised at independence in 1994 and often repeated in campaign speeches by current President Jacob Zuma in his quest for political office last year.

Just like Zimbabwe, South Africa inherited an unjust land ownership system from the apartheid governments which parceled out all the best farm land to white farmers, leaving blacks to arid land not fit for agricultural purposes.

The South African government has in the past said it will not go it the Zimbabwe way and often move quickly to crush land related protests and attempts at invading farms owned by white farmers though it has largely been unable to stop farm murders but this time it appears it is starting to feel the people power.

Farm seizures are blamed for plunging Zimbabwe – once a net exporter of the staple maize grain – into severe food shortages since 2001 after black peasant farmers resettled on former white farms failed to maintain production because the government failed to support them with financial resources, inputs and skills training.

Malawi gay couple face 14 years in prison

2010-05-19T15:27:00.000-07:00

A gay couple in Malawi, praised for their courage in holding an engagement celebration in a deeply conservative society, are now facing a potential 14-year prison sentence after being found guilty of “unnatural acts” and “gross indecency.”

The verdict has sparked a wave of condemnation from around the world. Amnesty International said the two men are prisoners of conscience and should be immediately released. Human rights groups in South Africa are planning to picket the embassy of Malawi.

The verdict was issued just days after Prime Minister Stephen Harper invited the president of Malawi to attend the G20 summit in Toronto next month. The president, Bingo wa Mutharika, has denounced homosexuality as “evil and bad before the eyes of God.”

The Malawi case has drawn attention to the widespread persecution of gays in Africa, where homosexuality is illegal in at least 38 countries. In one of the most extreme cases, Ugandan politicians are trying to introduce a new law that could impose the death penalty or life imprisonment for homosexuals.

In the court in Malawi’s commercial capital of Blantyre on Tuesday, the judge was stern and disapproving. Judge Nyakwawa Usiwa Usiwa said the gay couple were guilty of “carnal knowledge” that was “against the order of nature.”

The two men, 33-year-old hotel housekeeper Tiwonge Chimbalanga and 26-year-old Steven Monjeza, were arrested last December, shortly after they held a symbolic wedding as a public celebration of their partnership. Gay activists said they were courageous to hold their ceremony in public, since intolerance in Malawi is so widespread.

The prosecutor, Barbara Mchenga, said the actions of the gay couple had “left a scar on Malawi’s morality.” She said the two men were unrepentant and “seem to have been very proud of their action.”

Hundreds of spectators gathered at the court building to hear the verdict, and some taunted the gay couple as they were taken from the building. Police have handcuffed the couple in some of their public appearances.

The judge will announce the sentencing on Thursday. Under national laws dating back to the colonial era, a prison sentence of up to 14 years can be imposed on the two men.

A recent opinion poll across the continent found that the vast majority of Africans – up to 98 per cent in some countries – believe that homosexuality is “morally wrong.” Conservative religious groups, including Western missionaries and evangelical leaders, are highly influential in most African countries.

After the verdict was announced on Tuesday, the protests soon erupted. “Being in a relationship should not be a crime,” said Michelle Kagari, deputy Africa director at Amnesty, in a statement after the verdict. “No one should be arrested and detained solely on the basis of their real or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.”

The two men were beaten by police while in custody, and Mr. Chimbalanga was subjected to forcible anal examinations, Amnesty said. “Such an examination, performed without consent, contravenes the absolute prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment,” the Amnesty statement said.

In South Africa, the only African country where gays are given legal protection, a coalition of rights organizations said the verdict in Malawi was “a gross violation of human rights” and should be immediately overturned.

“Unjust, obsolete homophobic laws are retarding social progress and need to be repealed,” the coalition said. It called on South Africa to offer asylum to the gay couple.

Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz compared Goldstone to Nazi SS torturer Dr.Mengele.

2010-05-19T10:31:00.000-07:00

Two weeks after pro-Israel groups in South Africa withdrew threats to picket Richard Goldstone at his grandson’s bar mitzvah, Israeli critics are charging that the former judge “mercilessly” sentenced dozens of blacks to death on behalf of the apartheid-era regime during his judicial tenure.

The charges, aired in a front-page story in Israel’s largest daily newspaper, Yediot Achronot, were seized upon quickly by senior Israeli officials and some prominent American Jews in their campaign against the head of the United Nations commission that alleged Israel and its adversary, Hamas, committed war crimes during their winter 2008-09 conflict in Gaza.

Israel’s deputy foreign minister, Danny Ayalon, was one of several high-profile figures who compared Goldstone to the Nazis.

“I don’t want to exaggerate,” he told Israel Radio, commenting on Goldstone’s position that at the time he was bound as a judge to enforce South African law, “but these are the same explanations we heard in Nazi Germany after World War II.”

Harvard law professor and pro-Israel advocate Alan Dershowitz compared Goldstone to Nazi SS officer and torturer Dr. Josef Mengele.

“That’s what Mengele said, too—‘We just followed the law,’ ‘’ Dershowitz told Israel TV Channel 2. “When you are in an apartheid country like South Africa, you don’t follow the law.”

In an e-mail exchange with the Forward, Goldstone said the report was based on old news shorn of key context.

“The article reveals nothing that has not been a matter of public record for the last three decades,” he wrote.

Goldstone’s defenders argue that while he was obliged as a jurist to enforce the apartheid regime’s racist laws, Goldstone also issued rulings and pursued investigations that did much to dismantle the system.

“Not every judge appointed during the apartheid era was a supporter of apartheid,” wrote Arthur Chaskalson, who was appointed South Africa’s first post-apartheid chief justice by President Nelson Mandela, in a statement he issued with George Bizos, a longtime friend and lawyer of Mandela. “There were a number among them, including Richard Goldstone, who accepted appointment to the bench in the ’70s and ’80s in the belief that they could keep principles of the law alive.”

The charges were the latest attack on Goldstone’s character since the U.N. commission he headed published its report last September. Israeli officials view its findings as threatening the state’s very legitimacy, all the more due to Goldstone’s reputation as a jurist who helped end apartheid, and also because he is a Jew and self-described Zionist. They adamantly deny the report’s war crimes allegations.

Israeli officials characterized the Yediot report, which was published May 7, as “explosive PR material.” Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman reportedly ordered its distribution to Israeli diplomatic missions abroad to be used by official representatives arguing against Goldstone’s Gaza findings.

Sasha Polakow-Suransky, a South African Jew and fellow at the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations, urged Israel not to continue down the path forged by Yediot.

Polakow-Suransky, who recently published a book on Israeli-South African relations during apartheid, noted that Israel had served as Pretoria’s primary arms supplier during that period. Writing on Foreign Policy’s Web site, Polakow-Suransky called on Israel to examine its own “shameful history” before criticizing Goldstone.

In his e-mail exchange with the Forward, Goldstone pointed to the fact that Mandela appointed him to serve on South Africa’s post-apartheid Constitutional Court as evidence that his rulings under apartheid were not out of line.

“South Africans, who are of course familiar with my record and with apartheid, have not made the sort of allegations that certain members of the Israeli press and government are currently making,” he wrote.

The investigative report, by Yediot staff writer Tehiya Barak, said that Goldstone “sentenced dozens of blacks mercilessly to death” during his tenure as a trial judge and then on an appellate court in the 1980s and 1990s. The article specified later that he “sentenced at least 28 black defendants to death,” appearing to conflate those he sentenced as a trial judge and others whose cases he reviewed as an appellate judge. Most were found guilty of murder. The contexts were not political.

The story reported that “Goldstone sided through and through with the racist policies of the Apartheid regime” even on less serious crimes. It cited his ruling in favor of the whipping of four blacks found guilty of violence and his reversal of the convictions of four police officers who broke into a white woman’s house on suspicion that she was conducting sexual relations with a black man—considered a crime under apartheid.

In another incident, the story said, Goldstone ruled in favor of sentences for two young black men “merely for being in possession of a video tape showing a speech given by a senior official in Nelson Mandela’s party.” The article does not specify the sentence.

The article concluded that Goldstone should “look long and hard in the mirror and do some soul-searching before he rushes to criticize others.”

South Africa maintained the death penalty, which was applied disproportionately to blacks until 1995. That year, the post-apartheid Constitutional Court—which included Goldstone as one of its members—ruled unanimously that the death penalty was unconstitutional, ending the practice.

Goldstone acknowledged to the Forward that as a trial judge he sentenced two convicted murderers to death. He said he did not keep count of the number of death penalty appeals that failed before him as an appellate judge.

Goldstone maintained that some of the cases cited by Yediot “are taken out of context and misrepresented.”

He told the Forward that many of the decisions he made on the bench were “extremely difficult ones” and said he had always admitted “the difficult moral issues that had to be faced in taking an appointment on the apartheid bench.”

Goldstone was one of several liberal South Africans who accepted judicial appointments during the apartheid era. Goldstone has explained his decision to accept the appointment by citing the belief that he could reform the system from within. He has described the decision as “the most difficult of my career” because of the risk that he would grant legitimacy to the regime.

While Goldstone, as reported by Yediot, adhered to apartheid laws, he also is credited with having used his judicial power to undermine some racial restrictions. In 1986 he handed down a decision limiting the government’s ability to evict black people living in neighborhoods designated for whites. The decision paved the way for abolishing racially based residency restrictions.

Goldstone is credited as well with having helped bring down the curtain on apartheid through a government-commissioned investigation he led that exposed the existence of covert state-sponsored terror units deployed by South Africa against its own black citizenry.

“He was brave. He could’ve been killed,” Benjamin Pogrund, a former South African journalist and founder of the Yakar Center for Social Concern in Jerusalem, told the Forward last September, shortly after Goldstone’s commission released its report.

Still, for many Israelis and pro-Israel activists, the apartheid-era decisions handed down by Goldstone and detailed in Yediot were viewed as a blow to Goldstone’s credibility.

In his e-mail to the Forward, Goldstone wrote that “I have been judged by my fellow South Africans and by President Mandela for my role both during and after apartheid, and I find it curious that no one in Israel ever raised the issue except to laud me, prior to my Gaza report.”

(This article first appeared at Forward.com .)

Tens of thousands in anti-crime protest.

2010-05-19T10:13:00.000-07:00

Tens of thousands of South Africans from 352 communities today handed over memorandums to police stations across South Africa. The day of protest against crime was organised by the Solidarity Movement (Solidarity, AfriForum and Helping Hand). According to Solidarity, it is the most memorandums ever handed over in South Africa in one day and the largest protest action against crime ever. In Pretoria, about 1500 people got together and 27 memorandums were handed over to police stations in the city.

In the Western Cape, 75 memorandums were handed over in towns such as Bellville, Beaufort West, Hermanus, Franschhoek and Montagu. In the greater Johannesburg region alone, 42 memorandums were handed over, 26 in KwaZulu-Natal, 22 in the Free State and 55 in Mpumalanga and Limpopo.

Gatherings were held in Secunda, Port Elizabeth, Potchefstroom, Margate and Rustenburg, among others.

The memorandums handed over were addressed to the government, the South African Police Service (SAPS) and businesses. In the memorandums, a demand is made for, among other things, private expenses relating to crime prevention to be tax deductible in future.

"As a result of the government's inability to protect its citizens, people are forced to incur expenses to protect themselves. They, in effect, pay double taxation. It is therefore only fair that expenses incurred for private security should be tax deductible," said Dirk Hermann, deputy general secretary of Solidarity.

The memorandum also calls on the government to provide more resources, with a focus on training, to the SAPS. Further, an appeal is made to the SAPS to, among other things, lift the moratorium on the appointment of reservists in practice. The memorandum also calls on businesses to assist communities with crime prevention campaigns.

Pupils of schools in Linden, Roodepoort, Pretoria, Hartbeespoort and various towns in northern KwaZulu-Natal wore red t-shirts or red ribbons to school today in support of the protest against crime. Several small and medium businesses also closed between 13:00 and 14:00 to show their support for the protest action.

"We decided to form hundreds of small groups in communities to hand over memorandums instead of holding a few large gatherings. Crime not only affects a handful of large cities. It affects every small community. We decided that an anti-crime protest should be held everywhere where there is crime and that is in all communities across South Africa."

"South Africa may never allow crime to become a normal part of society. To show that crime is abnormal, we must protest against it. However, we not only protested. Through the protest action, we want to mobilise communities to get involved in community safety actions in cooperation with the SAPS. If we succeed in doing this, South Africa will be a safer place after 19 May," Hermann said.

Statement issued by Dirk Hermann, Deputy General Secretary: Solidarity, May 19 2010

Attempted hijacking in Benoni Backfires...pardon the pun.

2010-05-19T07:37:00.000-07:00

Emailed received explaining an attempted High Jack incident as follows:

Die ouers het geld by 'n bank in East Rand Mall getrek enBrentwoordpark toe gery. Dis waar alles toe gebeur het. Die voertuig is in Lakeside Mall gekry. Weereens het iemand in die bank gesien hoeveel geld hulle trek en hul makkers laat weet. Daar was 3 van hulle, een dood, een gewond en een heavy getraumatiseer, shame.

The husband and wife withdrew money from the bank and someone inside let the robbers know that a huge sum was drawn. The three robbers then followed the couple to their house in an Audi.

Attached are a crime scene taken by the victims of an attempted hijacking in Benoni. While returning home, the husband and wife were blocked in in their driveway by a white Audi with three armed black males. Luckily, their son was home at the time and in an effort to protect his parents, he opened up with his personal firearm on the three robbers, emptying his entire mag - 17 rounds

He hit one of them square in the head - dead, the second one he injured critically, and it seems the driver was only slightly wounded and managed to drive off with his buddies. They recovered the Audi in a parking garage of a shopping centre not far away. From the photos it becomes quite apparent what damage the shooter inflicted on the robbers - one poor armed robber lies dead in the Audi, ag shame!

According to police, the shooter single-handedly took out one of the armed-robbery gangs that had been terrorising the neighbourhood for cars four weeks prior to the incident.

And according to the family, they have only praise for all the police officers that were involved in this incident. They say the police acted highly professionally and went out of their way to assist the distressed family. This is clearly a prime example that many police officers in this country are still willing to do their jobs and to go that extra mile to help those in need!