The pavement outside Pretoria’s High Court sounded like Kinshasa on this fateful Friday in late November.
A handful of the 300,000-strong Congolese community in South Africa pounded the pavement with dance and chants.
Echoes of anger rang in their songs: “Kabila must go, Kabila must go” and “Tuta Muua, (We will kill him),” sang around 50 protesters.
“It’s better to live in hell than a South African prison,” says David Muyembi Bakajika.
The men had spent 23 hours a day locked in their cells with an hour for exercise.
Mussassa Tshibangu was merely glad to feel the sun on his skin.
“It is the first time that I see people, so many people, just walking in the streets. I am very happy.”
President Joseph Kabila was the man the 15 freed men were accused of trying to overthrow. Those released were part of the group recruited by Kabuka Lugaba Andrian Kilele, who remains in prison, for so-called anti-rhino poaching training at a remote Limpopo bush camp. They were arrested instead.
All of the men were charged under the Foreign Military Assistance Act for engaging in “mercenary activity” and rendering “foreign military assistance” as well as collectively conspiring to “commit murder” under the Riotous Assemblies Act.
The Hawks, South Africa’s undercover police agents, executed the sting operation and believe that the 15 were foot soldiers of a coup attempt. Prosecutors couldn’t make the charges stick.
“We stopped proceedings [because] it became apparent that we wouldn’t secure convictions due to a lack of evidence,” says National Prosecuting Authority spokesman Nathi Mncube.
Thesigan Pillay, lawyer to 14 of the men, says it was a partial victory.
Four of his clients, including Kilele, are believed to major players in an unfortunate plot remain in custody. They are: James Kazongo; Lunula ‘Patrick’ Masikini; and Kilele ‘Jeff’ Mukuti.
Etienne Kabila, who claims President Kabila is a relative and initially assumed to be the coup’s mastermind, is out on bail but still faces charges.
The men were released shortly after midday and the crowd burst into euphoria. The men were embraced, hands were shook, prayers were said and supporters danced.
Soon after the men were welcomed back into the world, the crowd escorted them to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) where they were promised help with jobs and homes. It was a 40-minute walk away.
While there, the men were summoned inside, the journalists were asked to stay outside. On their return, they were holding business cards from the ICRC. They say that they were offered support with their transition back into society, be it employment or lodgings.
As those released begin to make a new life, and leave the trauma of the old one behind, the other five return to court on January 26.

‘It’s Better  To Live In Hell Than A South African Prison’

The living room of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s Soweto home in Johannesburg is all Nelson Mandela – there are portraits, photographs and perpetual reminders of South Africa’s first black President on the walls, floors, tables and showcases.
Yet, the most enduring mental image of Mandela and Winnie is from that bright afternoon on 11 February 1990, when Mandela, in a brown suit and tie, stepped out of the Victor Verster prison in Cape Town, one fist punching the air in a victory salute, the other holding Winnie’s hand.
We meet Winnie in her home in November. She is misty-eyed when she talks about Mandela’s final days, but smiles when reminded of that headline-grabbing moment when he was set free. It is a moment she revisits often, as it signalled the dawn of a new era in South African politics.
February marks a quarter of a century since Mandela’s release from prison.
“Isn’t that amazing? It seems like yesterday,” says Winnie, now 78, when we mention it to her.
She is dressed in the traditional attire of the royal Thembu tribe, worn for a year in honor of Mandela’s passing. She says she will wear it until the ‘cleansing rituals’ on the first anniversary of his death observed in Qunu in South Africa’s Eastern Cape where he was laid to rest.
In December, after the ceremony, Winnie made headlines when she told reporters the Qunu property is rightfully hers, and did not belong to Mandela’s widow Graca Machel, who she famously said ‘owns a whole world’ in her native Mozambique.
She challenged Mandela’s estate, seeking rights to the Qunu home, claiming the land was given to her during Mandela’s imprisonment.
Winnie was married to Mandela for 38 years. The couple divorced in 1996.
During our first meeting in November, Winnie had reiterated that future generations should be reminded that the family’s legacy is not about commercial gain.
“The African National Congress was not the ANC Pty Ltd, as some members of the family think sometimes… every family has its problems, and there are those who seem to think the legacy of Mandela is associated [with] material things. It can never be that… The legacy of this family is a political legacy. Therefore, I thank God it will be carried on by this side of the family.”
“We need to remind future generations that the Mandela legacy is not what you can make out of his name… It’s not about creating entities that are going to give capital to you because you happen to have the last name as Mandela. That was never the case. Our legacy is political, it was never about material gain… It’s not about how many millions you can make out of exhibiting whatever [has] a Mandela face. It’s not about the statues popping up all over the country, it’s not about egos… I never ever wanted to be associated with such things… Ours was a political sacrifice, it was not material.”
Her second daughter Zindzi, also present at the interview, said that those who want to celebrate Mandela should do so thoughtfully.
“We understand that he didn’t belong to us alone. But we never thought that even in his passing, he will still really not be ours, because there are constant reminders… people choose to celebrate him in the way they think fit without thinking of what traditional protocols are required, without thinking that the most decent thing is to consult the family first,” she says.
It is no secret that the Mandela moniker is a money-spinner. His face has graced coins, billboards, paintings and commercials. It has often been reported in the country’s press that his legacy status has been hijacked by government, private institutions, even some members of his own family.
Zindzi claims that people come up with ideas and then go to the family for endorsement. She sees this as a total ‘disregard’ to his wishes.
“In some instances, we have been shocked at how distasteful some of the projects and concepts are, because very often, it’s more about the people themselves as opposed to his legacy. Dad distinctly said when he retired that ‘I want you to rely less on my personal image… and focus more on my legacy. The greatest gift you can give me is to start living my legacy and values in my lifetime and my sunset years…’”
“It is very important for people to always introspect when they are thinking of celebrating him and when they are thinking about living his values. And if they are not sure, just to respect the simple protocol of consultation. Like any other family, we would never embark on a celebration of another icon without recognizing that… he didn’t exist as a tree trunk without branches, he had family. And it becomes so hurtful when it is overlooked.”

“We Are Shocked  At How Distasteful Some Of The Projects Are”

Denis Goldberg, who faced death with Nelson Mandela in the 1964 Rivonia Trial, was in a TV studio in London commenting on the great man’s release from prison.
Goldberg was released before the others after 22 years.
“I was absolutely confident that I was the start of a process. I wanted to be out to play a role in the liberation of South Africa. I was tired of being a symbol locked up in prison and I thought the time had come to move things along. There was the offer of releases and unconditionally releases, I decided to accept because I didn’t want PW Botha’s offer in 1985 just to evaporate into thin air, he made the offer out of weakness not strength, that’s the important part,” says Goldberg.
“I was able to tell the story of how the day we were sentenced, the head of the prison security said we should have been hanged and will never walk out of prison on our own two feet; they’d carry us out in a coffin. And then Nelson Mandela stopped the car he was in and he and his then wife Winnie Mandela walked out holding their hands into freedom, and the rest is history. I was able to tell that story. We survived and the old security colonel had passed away.”
Goldberg has many memories of Mandela but one that sticks in the mind is their first encounter after prison.
“He said to me, ‘hello boy it’s been a long time. He always called me boy because I was so much younger then he was. It was very sweet and touching. I also remember a bit later when we met again in Sweden, my wife and my daughter had to meet him. He greeted my wife rather stiffly not knowing who she is and when I introduced her, he bent down from his great height and whispered to her, ‘the boy is looking good you must be looking after him very well.’”
Zakhe Khuzwayo, Group CFO of InnoVent, was 14 years old and at boarding school at Hilton College in Pietermaritzburg. The school was dismissed early so they could watch Mandela’s first walk as a free man.
“The man was an enigma, I think I had seen a photograph of him when I was younger, I didn’t know what to expect. I guess it was more exciting and anxiety to see who this guy is and see what he actually looks like,” says Khuzwayo.
Twenty five years later, Khuzwayo runs his own company and enjoys much of the freedom ushered in by the release of Mandela.
“His role was instrumental in what this country actually became,”
says Khuzwayo.
Political analyst Thapelo Tselapedi was four years old in 1990 and remembers the humble Toyota Cressida that Mandela rode through Cape Town in. He also remembers seeing the man in the flesh four years later.
“In 1994, when I was eight, we went to the Mafikeng stadium where he was speaking. After he spoke, my sister ran to him to him to try and get an autograph. Nelson Mandela was surrounded by his bodyguards and my brother and I tried to go in and get an autograph but we couldn’t. My sister was the only one who managed to get one. She got in, got her autograph, he shook her hand and then she got out. I was sad that I couldn’t break through, but my sister always kept that autograph in her room, it was very nice,” recalls Tselapedi.
A quarter of a century later, his feelings are bittersweet.
“Sweet because he has to do the impossible to calm down black people but at the same it seemed to not have been enough as it was limited by the interests that the white people had also wanted, he had to find a home for everyone and that meant compromise. The bittersweet part is characterized by where black people are now versus where white people are.”
Like Tselapedi, Goldberg has his opinions.
“I am still optimistic but I am also distressed. I am optimistic because we have achieved so much despite our weakness, despite the legacy of apartheid leaving us with an inadequate civil service, with half the population illiterate, half the population unemployed and we’ve come a long way since then and the conditions of people have undoubtedly improved. My sadness is the corruption and what I call the patronage society,” says Goldberg.
The man who stared down death with Mandela feels his country has a long way
to go.

‘I Am Still Optimistic But  I Am Also Distressed’

On February 21, President Robert Gabriel Mugabe will be 91. He has ruled Zimbabwe for 34 years making him the only leader the country has ever known and the oldest president in the world. The question grows by the day, who will run the country next?
It has been a poor few months for the aging Mugabe. He shocked delegates at the December party congress when for the first time he mistakenly uttered a slogan against his party – Pasi neZanu-PF (down with Zanu-PF).
Prior to that, he had also told a meeting that his foe and MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai had won the 2008 polls by 73%. He had to be corrected on both occasions by his close aides.
Political analyst Rashweat Mukundu says his wife Grace Mugabe, has become the de-facto Prime Minister capitalizing on her husband’s failing health.
“There is uncertainty and concern on the future of Zimbabwe as President Mugabe brutally suppresses any talk of succession and this has stalled policy clarity as no one is sure of the future. The economy has thus suffered hugely from the uncertainty and the intense focus on succession and power issues instead of service delivery and the economy,” says Mukundu.
The wheels started turning on December 9 when guerrilla fighter-turned leader Joice Mujuru, long viewed as a front runner in Zimbabwe’s succession race, was booted by Mugabe as Vice President.
On December 10, Mugabe appointed Minister of Justice Emmerson Mnangagwa his First Vice President and Phelekezela Mphoko, former Ambassador to South Africa, the Second Vice President. He has been dismissed as an also ran in Zimbabwe’s politics of succession.
Mnangagwa took over from Mujuru with help from the First Lady.
Grace is evidently an admirer of Mnangagwa or sees him as a weapon to fight her battles with the former Vice President.
Grace was known for her lavish lifestyle and poor academic performance in the months leading up to the December congress. She recently obtained a PhD from University of Zimbabwe, a doctorate she allegedly never studied for.
With others, she accused Mujuru of plotting to assassinate her husband, in a bid for power. Mujuru, a party loyalist, denies this.
The congress, that endorsed Mugabe as the party’s candidate for the 2018 elections, was castigated by former political heavyweights, like former Zanu-PF spokesperson Rugare Gumbo, as a ‘praise and worship’ function rather than an elective congress. Mugabe is without doubt losing control and it appears his wife is taking control.
Obert Hodzi, a Zimbabwean security researcher based in Hong Kong, sees striking similarities between Mugabe’s last days and that of China’s Chairman Mao.
“When Mao became very old and frail, his wife Jiang Qing and her close associates, Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan and Wang Hongwen, created their own center of power preparing to take over when Mao dies. They carried out extensive purges and executions of anyone perceived to be would-be successors,” he says.
“This is exactly what we are seeing in Zimbabwe. We are likely to see the dominance of Grace and her associates for a while and even after Mugabe’s demise.”
According to the Zimbabwean constitution (Amendment No.20 of 2013, the Sixth Schedule, section 14 (4) if the president dies, resigns or is removed from office – (a) the Vice President or, where there are two Vice Presidents, the Vice President who was last nominated to act in terms of the Constitution – acts as President until a new President assumes offices; and the vacancy in the office of the President must be filled by a nominee of the political party which the President represented when he or she stood for election. A political party which is entitled to nominate a person in terms of subparagraph (4) (b) must notify the Speaker of the nominee’s name within ninety days after the vacancy occurred.
Dewa Mavhinga, lawyer and senior researcher for Zimbabwe and Southern Africa at Human Rights Watch, says that section 101 of the Constitution, which says that the Vice President takes over to finish the term of office, does not apply in this case as the Sixth Schedule supercedes section 101. Under this section, the political party nominates and notifies the Speaker of the nominee who takes oath of office to finish the term.
“His party Zanu-PF will nominate a successor, so it means succession is not automatic for VPs and could trigger chaos and instability given that the leadership of Zimbabwe security forces is highly politicized and partisan and could take sides in the succession disputes,” says Mavhinga.
Mavhinga says if securocrats prefer someone other than the First Vice President, the dynamics could tilt dramatically. Whoever takes over must purge more of Mujuru’s sympathizers in parliament and garner support in both the politburo and central committee.
Mnangagwa, a less charismatic leader than Mujuru, could stand against the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader in the 2018 elections should Mugabe, who would then be 94, fail to run as the party’s candidate. Morgan Tsvangirai’s opposition MDC party says they are poised to win the next elections. This would mean Mnangagwa’s long-held ambitions could slip through his fingers.
“All indicators are pointing to a resounding victory of Morgan Tsvangirai and the MDC-T provided the elections are free and fair,” says MDC party spokesperson Obert Gutu.
“We are taking very far-reaching steps to ensure that the next elections in Zimbabwe will be held in a free and fair environment that will produce a legitimate and uncontested outcome. For strategic reasons, I am not at liberty to disclose our game plan, suffice to state that the Zanu-PF regime will not be allowed to have its cake and eat it.”
You could argue Zanu-PF had its cake and ate it for nearly 35 years. Food is at stake in the fight. Whoever takes over needs to drag Zimbabwe back to the long-lost position as the breadbasket of Africa.
A grim power struggle will play out first before the green shoots of maize can even be thought of.

By The Grace Of Bob

Kuantan, Malaysia, seems a long way from the translucent dusk and rich red earth of peaceful Malawi. Standing in the heart of an ancient swamp the daylight is fading to an impenetrable gloom. Seeping through my toes in the dusk is brackish black peat water.
If it wasn’t for the stifling humidity and the call of a fish eagle over the pristine distant forest I could be in a stinking bog in the Scottish Hebrides. To the north of the ‘Black Jewel’ forests of southern Malaysia, where I stand, the brilliant LED lights of a remote state of the art refinery glow through the Asian night.
Over its metal ramparts, migrant Malaysian workers scurry over scaffolding like ants. They are part of a race that is seeing the world’s biggest mining and technology companies scour the ends of the earth to break China’s stranglehold on rare earths – a band of obscure but increasingly strategic metals integral to our technological world.
Today, this dank and rather obscure corner of Malaysia represents the new frontier for refining rare earths – a group of 17 largely similar metallic-chemical elements used in products from smartphones and televisions to hybrid-car batteries. This plant has been built to refine ore from the Mount Weld mine deep in the Australian desert, 2,500 miles away.
Inside these humble rocks from the outback are rare-earth minerals, crucial ingredients for smartphones, as well as wind turbines, hybrid cars, and night-vision goggles. Minerals such as neodymium are used in magnets that make phone and laptop speakers vibrate to create sound. Or europium, a phosphor that creates the bright red on an iPhone screen. Let’s not forget cerium which makes our perfect metal smartphones shiny and new as they move along the assembly line.
The Malaysian refinery’s backers, Lynas, believe they will eventually be able to meet nearly a third of the world’s demand for rare earth materials here. Most crucially, Kuantan’s refinery is the first rare earth ore processing plant to be built outside China in nearly three decades.
It’s arrival, and the decision by China to scrap its quota system restricting exports of rare earth minerals after losing a World Trade Organization case, could also signal Africa’s entry into the burgeoning market. Lynas believe they are backing a clear winner as the global demand for technology reaches new heights. Yet it is a venture not without risk. Historically, rare earths have proven tricky to process.
As Malaysia learned the hard way a few decades ago, refining rare earth ore usually leaves thousands of tons of low-level radioactive waste behind. As a consequence the west has largely left the dirty work to Chinese refineries. The world’s reluctance to process rare earths has meant that China now mines and refines at least 90% of the global supply – allowing Beijing a virtual monopoly that has handed them a global trade weapon in an increasingly high-tech world.
Last September, China imposed a two-month embargo on rare earth shipments to Japan during a territorial dispute, and for a short time even blocked some shipments to the United States and Europe. It’s an environmental and economic backstory that does much to explain Lynas’ $230-million investment into the world’s most advanced rare earth refinery but one that also concerns environmentalists.
Critics of the Lynas plant claim it will generate 28,000 tons of solid waste containing radioactive by-products annually. The most controversial element in the waste cocktail, claim Greenpeace and local campaigners, is thorium, a mildly radioactive element that is toxic in large doses and easily spread through wind and water. Exposure to thorium is tied to increased risk of cancer. Although the sprawling plant is located on the Gebeng industrial estate, about 30,000 people live within a two-kilometer radius and 700,000 reside within 25 kilometers of the refinery.
Lynas claim that the final waste material will have levels of radioactivity low enough to allow it to be transported overseas. A team from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) also assessed the Kuantan plant and judged it to meet all safety standards.
Here, along the Andaman coast, the debate ploughs on. In many ways it feels like I have been here before. In 2006, I, like many other correspondents, obsessed over coltan, traveling across Goma and Kivu as rebel groups stationed throughout the eastern Democratic Republic Congo waged war on both one another and the government over that most pliable of soft metals – coltan – placing bonded slaves and kidnapped children into the supply chains of major electronic firms who sought it.
Coltan’s value, like rare earths, was, at the time, hard to understand. Short for columbite-tantalite, it is an ore that takes on heat-resistant properties when it gets refined. It’s also capable of holding a high electrical charge for a long time. Both characteristics make it an ideal component in circuitry design, particularly in smartphones and other electronic devices, which constantly need to improve battery life.
For NGO’s coltan was the poster boy of the so-called 3TGs: tantalum (coltan), tin, tungsten and gold, all used extensively in the electronics industry. To many within the electronics industry, coltan and other conflict minerals is an old narrative. But the truth is Africa’s entanglement with potentially damaging technology minerals might actually just be beginning.
Our obsession with technology means our need for rare earths can only grow exponentially. Today, geologists also believe Africa has more than half the world’s deposits of carbonatites, the type of rock formation seen as the prime hunting ground for rare earths.
Another advantage Africa, in particular South Africa, offers is vast amounts of monazite sands left over from other mining operations from which rare earths can be extracted. The Great Western Minerals Group’s Steenkampskraal project in South Africa, for example, has some of the highest concentrations of certain types of rare earths of any mine outside of China.
Perhaps surprisingly, given its relative low-profile in the mining sector, the most promising site on the continent is the Kangankunde Hill region of Malawi. According to the US Geological Survey and Lynas, who have interests in the southern African nation, the potential is significant.
According to Will Dawes, Chief Executive Officer of Canadian company Mkango Resources, Malawi could become Africa’s largest rare earth producer.
“Malawi ticks the boxes in terms of resource potential, a stable political environment, infrastructure and government support,” he says.
Dawes believes there are at least five potential major rare earth mines in Malawi, of which Mkango’s Songwe Hill project is the most advanced. It is undeniably a factor that could transform one of Africa’s most historically weak economies but also bring considerable environmental concerns.
As with processing rare earths, extracting individual elements from the host mineral’s chemistry is a complex and energy-intensive process, involving strong acids and other hazardous chemicals. Radioactive materials such as uranium and thorium are often found alongside rare earth elements, and these can end up in the ‘tailings’ – a toxic stew of waste products from the refinement process.
Rare earths must be separated and purified using hydro-metallurgical techniques and acid baths. As a consequence, the foul waters contain radioactive elements which, if ingested, cause cancers of the pancreas and lungs and leukemia. But, with Malawi’s mining promise comes a lead lining to their economic cloud at least.
As a consequence of rare earths’ troubled history, major corporations like Siemens, Samsung and Toyota are already designing new products that use fewer rare earths or substitute materials.
It is also predicted that recycle rates of rare earths from existing products, very low because of the expense and complexity involved, may also increase in future. Honda, for example, has already begun extracting more than 80% of its rare earth materials from nickel-metal hydride batteries.
Julian Kirby, lead campaigner for Friends of the Earth’s Make It Better initiative, which aims to make companies come clean about their supply chains, is adamant that “environmental costs must be factored into the prices of rare earths”, creating an incentive to recycle existing materials. Kirby also believes there should be a change in reporting by major firms to ensure it includes non-financial information. Only then, he claims, will electronics manufacturers take greater responsibility.
In Malaysia, rare earth refining on their doorstep has split public opinion.
To date, more than 1.2 million people signed a petition calling for Lynas to close its plant and thousands have taken to the streets to express their opposition to the rare earth refinery operating the country. The presence of the facility has sparked one of the biggest environmental movements in Malaysian history. According to one local campaigner in Kuantan, China’s loss of its rare earth monopoly will also prove a loss for the rest of the world, including Africa, as the floodgates open on a toxic trade.

Rare Pollution  And Profit

December is the month we celebrate, give gifts, and restore joy to the world regardless of religious beliefs. This year, for the first time, we will remind ourselves of Nelson Mandela, as the anniversary of his death is recalled.
He taught us much about reconciliation. But my memories of him are always infused with his laughter, his sense of fun, his delicious wit, his ability to make light of serious matters thereby bringing them into human perspective.
Most times it would start with a phone call.
“Hello Peter,” that familiar voice would boom, “how are you today?”
While always joyful to get the call, behind the happy emotion was one of trepidation: what does the old man want from me?
Bill Clinton once said – after Mandela had introduced him as one of the best politicians in the world from whom he could learn a lot of tricks – that South Africans didn’t know how lucky they were.
“Mr Mandela is a pretty good and tricky politician himself,” Clinton said with a chuckle.
“When he calls and says ‘Mr President’ I know there is a matter of State to discuss. But if he says ‘Hello Bill, how are you?’ I know this call is going to cost the United States a billion dollars.”
It sounds like bragging to say he called me often. But he did, because of my job as editor of The Star. His relationship with the media was excellent, friendly, courteous, never demanding, always suggesting.
And he did like to see his picture in the paper. At the end of one year, I presented him with a framed poster ‘page one’ made from all the times his photograph had been on the front page: 27 times in that year, making him our favorite pin-up.
Yet he still complained that we were not giving him and his political party, the ANC, the space they deserved.
“If I put a picture of you on every page, you would still want more. You politicians are all the same,” I grumbled.
“Not on the back page,” he said. “I don’t want to be with losing teams.”
He called to invite me to breakfast and I had my children with me so asked if they could come, naturally he agreed.
When he heard I had named my daughter after Helen Suzman, he told my Helen, then seven, that he hoped she would be a fighter like Suzman.
“I want to be a vet,” said my Helen matter-of-factly.
“Well, I have some cows in Qunu,” he said, “will you come look after them when I have retired to the hills?”
“I don’t think so,” said Helen, undiplomatically.
Once inside his Houghton home I told my two daughters to please play outside.
“Let them stay,” he said.
“No, they will break some Ming vase or other irreplaceable gift, they can play outside,” I said.
“I am the president, you can stay,” he told them.
“I’m your father, leave and play outside.”
“Tell your father I am also his President and am instructing him to let you stay…”
They stayed, and my youngest daughter, Julia, wandered about the sitting room touching everything as I kept a beady and rather anxious eye on her.
Halfway through our intense political discussion, she stood behind him, tugged his head backwards and kissed him on his forehead.
Astonished, he asked: “What was that for?”
She shrugged her six-year-old shoulders and said: “You looked sad and grumpy. I thought you needed a kiss.”
He loved Julia forever after. When he spotted me at functions he would call out “How’s Julia?” as his greeting.

The Day A Sad And Grumpy Mandela  Needed A Kiss

Football fans are the same around the world, united by their passion for their team and their love of the beautiful game. But in Africa those passions run extremely high and can lead to over-exuberance in a bid to portray their undying love.
Millions across Africa dream of being a professional footballer, but few make it. The rest must show their love of the game from the stands. This takes form in many ways, from singing songs, painting entire bodies, blowing a vuvuzela, dressing up in colorful garb to the non-stop beat of drums.
While fans in Europe carry banners and chant their support for their side, in Africa the displays are more interesting.
In most cases, there is harmony among opposing fans, which is a particular trait of the African game. If you have ever ventured to high-profile derbies such as Nkana vs. Power Dynamos in Zambia, Kaizer Chiefs vs. Orlando Pirates in South Africa or Asante Kotoko vs. Hearts of Oak in Ghana you will find opposing fans getting along both before and after the match. This is what I love about African supporters. If, on the highest stage, only one African team remains, as was the case at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa with Ghana, the entire continent will support this team. That is African unity.
Recently in Brazil, when finalists Argentina played the World Cup final against Germany, Brazilians were shouting for the Europeans rather than their South American neighbors.
Hooliganism in football is on the decrease worldwide but does still exist, largely in Europe and South America. Fans from rival teams attack each other in senseless acts of violence that have nothing to do with football and are usually more a comment on social status and a chance for the ‘ultras’ from each side to flex their muscles.
This is extremely rare in Africa, especially south of the Sahara. North African sides sometimes still have a problem with fan violence which is often politically motivated. There was the recent tragedy in Algeria when Cameroon striker Albert Ebossé Bodjongo was killed by an object thrown by his own supporters as he walked off the field at the end of a game. JS Kabylie had lost the match, despite a goal from Ebossé, and the fan frustration turned deadly.
It is also in North Africa where fans can let the spirit of fair play fall by the wayside. The use of hand-held laser pens to shine into the eyes of opposing goalkeepers and players is widespread and authorities seem powerless to stop it, though it is unclear how much effort they are putting into ending the practice.
How supporters can accept a victory created in such circumstances is beyond me, there is surely no honor in vanquishing an opponent using underhand means. These desperate measures come from the fact that, in some parts of Africa more than others, the club you support says everything about who you are and the status you carry in society.
For example, the Cairo derby between Al Ahly and Zamalek, one of Africa’s greatest rivalries, splits the city along social lines. Zamalek have traditionally held the support of the more affluent, aristocratic section of Cairo, while Al Ahly fans are more working-class. Violence is still common today.
Those are the negatives around fans from the continent, but there is also plenty to enjoy with the way in which Africans attend matches.
Away fans are rare at national team level in African football with the logistical difficulties and expense of travel on the continent. But in club football, where big teams tend to enjoy popular support from around the country, some sides appear to be playing at home every week.
Take Kaizer Chiefs in South Africa as an example, their away games are generally very well supported and the vast majority of fans in the stadium will be supporting AmaKhosi. TP Mazembe of the Democratic Republic of Congo also enjoys support across the country, home and away. In Zambia, Nkana FC, revel in packed stadiums.
This is something quite unique to the African game, as in other parts of the world there would be a large allocation of tickets for home fans only. Away supporters are segregated into small areas of the stadium. But with no segregation needed due to little threat of violence across most of the continent, tickets are sold on the open market and there are certain teams that can rely on fans to come out in numbers wherever they play.
That being said, a lot of teams from Africa are battling to bring in the crowds they once did, except for the so-called big matches. The reason for this is varied, the expense of going to a game being a major factor. Today, there are also a lot more options available for entertainment away from football.
And as ever, the numbers in the stands are reflected in the success on the pitch – people are much more likely to turn up to watch a team on a roll than one struggling for results. That is human nature.
Fans from the African continent are unique and wonderful; they bring a vibrancy and energy to matches. Without them, the game would be poorer.

The Pride And The Passion

It’s a windy day in mid-September and a thick band of dust encircles northern Johannesburg. Perfect weather for flag-flying and Gauteng’s biggest is billowing at Flag Craft International, which exports flags to half of Africa.
Owner Tony Hampson-Tindale is amused by a question about South Africa’s tallest flagpole at the Donkin Reserve in Port Elizabeth, which stands at 45 meters, nearly 20 meters taller than his.
“They’re at sea level. Johannesburg is 1,753 meters above sea level so ours is higher!”
Heights are important to 66-year old Hampson-Tindale. He’s conquered the Seven Summits and in a few weeks is heading back to the Himalayas to climb Ama Dablam in eastern Nepal.
In 2010, he planted the flags of his native New Zealand and adoptive South Africa atop Everest and at the age of six was inspired when Edmund Hillary first did it; but to him flags are less about passion and more about business. He’s owned Flag Craft since 1984 and exports flags, windsocks and poles to 34 countries, mainly in Africa and the Middle East.
Clients include the African Union, to whom Hampson-Tindale has been supplying flags since OAU days. There are flags for conferences, bosberaads and political parties, not to mention windsocks for airports across the continent. Wind, sun and pollution are enemies of the flag: causing them to become brittle and fray. In blustery or smoggy areas, flags need replacing every six months.
On the factory floor, production staff are squeegeeing dye across screens, replicating onto woven polyester the familiar light blue, black and white of the Botswana flag – part of a big government order. Although workers here still do the silkscreen printing by hand, there’s little creativity about this job, says Hampson-Tindale.
“We are robots. We are given a specification by a country or a company and we do exactly that.”
Seamstress Roselia Sakong has been working here for 14 years, cutting, measuring and sewing flags destined to fly solemnly at military parades, be draped sadly over coffins, or waved enthusiastically at sports matches.
She says she has only one small desk flag stuck into a pot plant at home, but sewed the giant flag that flies outside her work. It’s her pride and joy.
“When I come to work by taxi from Soweto, I often point to it and tell people I made that.”
Among the company’s proudest moments was supplying thousands of flags for Nelson Mandela’s inauguration.
But Hampson-Tindale is not convinced all flag money is well spent. North Korea has the world’s third tallest flagpole at 160 meters, while the flag itself weighs 260 kilograms.
“Some governments will spend millions on flags even if their population is starving.”
Vexillologist Bruce Berry sees flags as the soul of a nation. Every morning, he raises a flag in his Johannesburg garden. One day it may be the fleur-de-lis of the flag of Quebec; the next, the red, yellow and green Ghanaian flag with its black star. There’s not much about flags Berry doesn’t know.
“Ghana was the first African country to adopt its own flag, apart from Ethiopia, which was never colonized.”
On his wife’s birthday, he flies the flag of her native Kenya. The Bendera ya Kenya is one of his favorites. There’s no mistaking the center shield and it’s a pleasing deviation from the red, black and green pan-Africanist colors.
As a child growing up in what was then Rhodesia, Berry says he was fixated with flags, but most people found his obsession curious.
When he was 10, he persuaded his father to buy him a pole, a base and a pulley and began flying flags in their garden: the old South African flag on his mother’s birthday, the Union Jack on his father’s and if they had house guests, he’d find an appropriate flag.
“We were the talk of Bulawayo,” says his sister Angela. “Every time anyone went overseas he’d ask whomever it was to bring him a flag. Eventually he had so many he had to store them in suitcases because there was no wall space left in his bedroom and my mother refused to let him hang them all over the house.”
In 1973, at the age of 12, Berry was relieved to read an article entitled: Flag-Wavers On The Increase.
“That’s when I first realized there was a name for people like me,” Berry says. “Vexillologists: ‘vexillum’ is Latin for standard and ‘ology’, the science of.”
Seventeen years later, Berry helped establish the Southern African Vexillological Association (SAVA).
One of SAVA’s first tasks was to help design a new national flag for South Africa. The primary theme had to be convergence and unification. The actual design was done by the state herald, Fred Brownell. Berry was part of the technical team.
“Usually the fewer colors in a flag the better. But this was a distinctive design because it had six primary colors. It was basically a compromise flag, with black, green and gold elements of the ANC, PAC and Inkatha [Freedom Party] and the red, white and blue of our colonial heritage.”
As the sun sets over Johannesburg, Berry respectfully lowers the flag of St David: a yellow cross on a black field. It’s been flying to honor his son, David, whose birthday it is.
“Flags are symbols of communication; they evoke emotions, be it a red cross, a swastika, or your national flag at half-mast&#8230; There’s no international law that says flags must be used, yet every country in the world has at least one. That is the power of flags.”

This Business  Is Not Flagging

As the summer heated up in the heart of Soweto, Johannesburg’s largest township, businessmen Ndumiso Madlala and Josef Schmid, brewed 12,000 liters of beer for the Christmas rush. All seemed busy with the whiff of malt and hops. Brewmaster Madlala shared his brew with the FORBES AFRICA crew. The slightly sweet, lingering finish washed agreeably over the palate of this avid beer imbiber.
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It is their first Christmas; they want to double their production; enough to get the whole of Soweto drunk until the New Year. But it has not been smooth-sailing for the duo; an in-house beer festival in October was postponed following a yard inspection by the health authorities. They wanted an oil tank to be covered at the brewery. A hiccup in the frothy beer business.
“With this venture alone we foresee a good R55 million ($5 million) per annum, and we are also planning to open another four establishments in other townships in the country. Our model is exclusively township. As I was traveling Europe when I was a student, I saw every little town had its own beer. Here townships are big neighborhoods, I see it necessary they have their own local beers,” says Madlala.
Schmid joined forces with Madlala with a vision and a passion.
“In South Africa microbrewing was very elitist and white dominated, prior to Soweto Gold. But with the great emerging and growing middle class in the townships we saw a niche market. So, we see ourselves as pioneers,” says Schmid.
The two are as different as cold beer and warm tea. Thirty-five-year-old Madlala grew up in Elandskop, a village 35 kilometers outside Pietermaritzburg in KwaZulu-Natal. He obtained a Master’s degree in science in the Netherlands and then worked for Africa’s biggest brewer, SABMiller, for nine years. Schmid, 44, the son of an Austrian butcher, was born to the Swedish middle class. He is a hospitality and tourism executive who came to South Africa to work.
They met through a friend in early 2012. In October, they registered the business under MadMead Brewing Co. After a two-year wait for a full license, they turned out their first batch of Soweto Gold in July. This start-up company cost investors $800,000. The Industrial Development Corporation, a government entity, also loaned the company $320,000.
“We estimated that we will brew for about seven months until we reach capacity and in that time we accumulate funds to do an expansion but there was such a demand for the beer that Ndumiso started brewing in July and we reached capacity in August. The reality is that we have hit the production peak in the first month of production. Coming from nowhere, we are the second-best selling craft beer in the country,” says Schmid.
“As an entrepreneur you are always a dreamer and it is that dream that makes you so sure that everything is going to work out. No matter how bad things turn out, the vision carries you forward,” says Madlala.
It’s been a long and winding road. Schmid and Madlala traveled to China searching for the best machinery and shipped it to South Africa, in late March.
“Ndumiso is an expert in processing; he modified their designs to work in our space and our flow and what we want to do,” says Schmid.
MadMead Brewing Co is based in Ubuntu Kraal, an entertainment venue with a restaurant, in Orlando West, Soweto. In a few months, they’ve channeled the beer through 25 restaurants, pubs and taverns around Johannesburg, including affluent Sandton, Rivonia and Fourways. They employ more than 60 people.
As the company senses demand, the names are born: Apple Ale, Cherry Ale, Orlando Stout and Weiss Gold.  In this, Ndumiso has not forgotten his roots.
“For next year we are also conceptualizing a sorghum malt maize beer which brings our traditional ways of brewing together with the Western ways of brewing… We want to put sorghum beer back in its premium space, so we want to see if we can flavor the traditional beer with pineapple. But this will be on the non-commercial scale for the guests to enjoy in-house,” says Madlala.
Soweto Gold is enjoying popularity at craft beer festivals.
“The best ego boost for us is to go to a beer festival and you get people saying this was the best beer on the market. We outsell people on price because we are a quality beer,” says Schmid.
“We have hit capacity without even tapping into Cape Town or Durban; we are only in Johannesburg for now. We are now venturing into canned beer because it is easier to package and we are modelling ourselves after American micro-brewers,” says Madlala.
He says canning of their beer will help in shipping to markets in Africa and overseas, but their first attempt was difficult.
“We had cans already out in the market but we pulled them back because we could not control the quality. The canning was done by a third party. As soon as we started our own canning line we were sold out. This has enabled us to pasteurize our product and it can stand on the shelves for at least three months and therefore makes a viable retail product,” says Madlala.
Cans could be a good move in a market that rates them above brown bottles, according to Apiwe Nxusani, a general manager and master brewer at Brewhogs Brewers, one of craft beer pioneers in South Africa.
“I personally believe there’s a market for brands like Soweto Gold to grow and compete with the commercial beers. It depends at which segment of the market they are specifically targeting as the price at which craft beer is sold at could never compete with your 750ml of Black Label, for example, as sold at the shebeens,” says Nxusani.
“The market would be the upmarket, classy and BEE guys in Sandton who want to make a statement.”
Christopher Gilmour, an investment analyst at Absa Bank, agrees that craft beer has its place.
“Craft beer, or real ale as it is known in Britain, is a small but rapidly growing industry in South Africa. Until seven years ago, there were fewer than 20 brewers, the largest being Bavaria and Mitchell’s,” says Gilmour.
He says the rest of the world is catching up.
“These beers have a loyal and knowledgeable following, quite different to that of premium beers. Pricing is often significantly higher than premium beers and reflects the lower volumes brewed and higher input costs and lower economies of scale compared to mainstream and premium beers,” says Gilmour.
Whatever the volume, Soweto is heading for a golden Christmas. Don’t let the gentle sounding name of Soweto Lady Gold fool you. This lady has a kick like a mule.

No Matter How Bad Things Turn Out: Cheers!

Reporting on the African continent is an “extreme act of courage”, writes journalist Shyaka Kanuma in a Nieman report. The Rwandan was in exile, addressing other Nieman fellow journalists at Harvard University.
The fellowship, one of the most sought after in the world, has seen its fair share of African journalists fleeing trouble back home. Gregory Stemn was one. The Liberian photojournalist chronicled the horrors of his country’s civil war against Charles Taylor’s wishes. South African Nat Nakasa was the first black African Nieman fellow in September 1964. He chose exile to join the fellowship but committed suicide ten months later, jumping off a Manhattan apartment building, manically depressed at the thought of never returning to the country he was forced to abandon.
To be a journalist on African soil is to consign oneself to an uneasy life; be it in war zones or in fearful newsrooms. Greg Marinovich, a Pulitzer Prize-winning South African photojournalist, writing on the tribulations faced by African war photographers noted, “across&#8230; the continent, ruthless regimes bring the violence and fear to bear to suppress the truth.”
This handful of Africans, merely plying their trade on the side of reason, is often forgotten. These are their stories.
January 9, 1994: Katlehong, a township just outside Johannesburg. Gunfire crackles as dignitaries make it beyond the rusted metal shacks of what they called no-man’s land.
Jessica Pitchford was covering the township beat for public broadcaster SABC on that day. Looking into the camera she began, “at the moment, it’s quite safe here&#8230;”
The rattle of bullets broke off the sentence. Pitchford threw herself to the ground.
Ahmed Sharif, a freelance photographer, is shot next to her; dying from his injuries hours later. On the other side, her colleague Charles Moikanyang is shot in the back. She helps him from the line of fire. He survives.
“We were just part of a group of people who happened to be invading an official war zone,” says Pitchford to a magazine a few months after Katlehong.
She wasn’t happy with her story.
“I hate the way I handled this one&#8230; I should have put it in context. I didn’t even mention that a woman and child had also been caught in the crossfire&#8230; all I was worried about was getting Charles to hospital. It was a journalist’s story. A little too self-indulgent, I thought.”
Violence was playing out across the country. In the early 1990s, South Africa was at a crossroads. Political reforms made way for democratic elections to end apartheid. Nelson Mandela was President-in-waiting.
The country’s media was negotiating a new kind of editorial freedom. Journalists were dodging bullets to tell the story of political violence. It is believed that close to 14,000 South Africans were killed during the bloody transition to democracy. Katlehong was ground zero.
Monica Zwolsman was a reporter at Johannesburg newspaper, The Star; the same publication her late husband, award-winning photographer Ken Oosterbroek, worked for.
“Looking back, I am just horrified at what went on and how people lived through that&#8230; I don’t think anyone knew, and we still don’t really know, who was attacking who.”
Zwolsman was part of an innocent and confused generation of journalists.
“I don’t think we, as journalists, had the skills [to cover these events]&#8230; It was difficult trying to get a handle on what was happening. It was never a constant, it started off with pangas (machetes) and steels bars and it evolved to AK-47s.”
Oosterbroek was a leading light in the now-famous Bang Bang Club, a band of daring photojournalists working in what they called no-man’s land – between battle lines drawn in the townships. A week before the elections of 1994, a bullet stopped him forever in Thokoza, east of Johannesburg.
“Everyone knew he was dead except me&#8230; when I got there people had just ran away and I ran into the hospital and I just saw his feet sticking out… that’s when I realized [that he was dead].”
In the book that chronicled their lives out in the field, friend and fellow Bang Bang Club member Greg Marinovich, who was also injured in the carnage says, “after four long years of observing violence, the bullets had finally caught up with us.”
A willingness to pursue a story at considerable personal risk was typical among reporters. They organized in packs; groups of foreign and local journalists moved together, finding safety in numbers.
“The local journalists knew where to go and where not to go. They could read the situation, you had to get to know that and you had to look out for each other. Even today, people are so closely bonded – that group of journalists – because we worked together and we genuinely lived through some crazy times,” recalls Zwolsman.
Back in the safety of the newsrooms, editors could merely keep tabs on their reporters, says Peter Fabricius, who was an assignment editor at the Independent. He sent a number of South African journalists to conflicts at home and further afield in the Congo; it was a difficult job.
“It was pretty nerve-racking having to send people into danger not knowing what you were exposing them to.”
These were the days before cell phones. Cumbersome satellite phones were the only way. But only a few, well-funded, newsrooms could afford them.
Oppression and imprisonment are other occupational hazards. There must be few jobs in the world where you can consider yourself fortunate to end up in jail.
Seyoum Tsehaye is one of those journalists behind bars. He began his journalism career as a guerrilla with the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF), the armed movement that ended Ethiopian occupation in 1993.
Some guerrillas were armed with cameras and voice recorders along with Kalashnikovs. They were not objective war-reporters but they captured rare footage of battle and interviewed commanders. These fighters provided the only records of this conflict in Africa’s mysterious hermit kingdom.
After the war, many Eritrean warrior-journalists abandoned their AK-47s to staff the country’s burgeoning state-controlled media. Tsehaye was appointed the country’s first head of state television.
In the late 1990s, with fresh conflict with Ethiopia looming, Tsehaye stopped toeing the party line. He joined an “audacious” independent paper and returned to photography. He began speaking out against the renewed fighting and campaigned for democracy. He was shadowed by secret police until his arrest and detention in 2001.
Recent news of him, provided by “sympathetic prison guards”, claims his health is “deteriorating” as he is shifted from one desert prison to the other.
Still behind bars, Tsehaye won the Reporter’s Without Borders ‘Journalist of the Year Award’ in 2007.
Brian Hungwe, an award-winning journalist from Zimbabwe, is well aware of the risks of political reporting. In 2000, he broke the story of families who lost their sons in the escalating war in the Congo.
Two years earlier, Mugabe mobilized Zimbabwean troops, against the wishes of his electorate, and sent them to the DRC at the start of the Second Congo War. The casualties were considerable.
“It started with one family, their son was a pilot but they only received a knee-cap for burial. They were living in fear that they buried the wrong person,” remembers Hungwe.
Slowly, but surely, more families came forward and Hungwe began an investigation into their claims. It culminated in the “DRC War Casualties Shock” report that won him the CNN Multichoice Journalist of the Year Award.
He was meticulous, even pushing for an official government response, confident that it would shield him from persecution.
“The story was true. If you can defend the truth then you are fortified. I was lucky because the truth was on my side. Getting the government to comment was difficult. They never responded although we faxed them and phoned them as well.”
Once the story was published and Hungwe accepted his award, a senior government representative belatedly denied the story.
Hungwe’s story shows there can be triumphs, as well as danger, in African journalism.
Andrew Mwenda, a Ugandan journalist who has been in and out of prison on sedition charges, continues to push the envelope. In 2007, he founded The Independent, a Kampala news magazine. Mwenda won the International Press Freedom Award from the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists in 2008. He owns, edits and publishes the magazine.
“You buy the truth, we pay the price,” is the magazine’s motto. Journalists from Kampala to Katlehong will nod with a knowing smile.

The Perils Of  The Written Word

This calm encounter on a spring morning in Sandton, Johannesburg, belies a man who forged his career amid fury. He cheated death at the hands of police to capture the Soweto school uprising, surely, one of the saddest stories ever told in Africa.
On June 16, 1976, Sam Nzima, a photojournalist at The World newspaper, in Johannesburg, took a picture of Mbuyisa Makhubo carrying a 13-year-old dying Hector Pieterson from the Soweto massacre. He smuggled the film out in his sock and the picture hit the front pages of the world. The police wanted to destroy it – the image destroyed Nzima’s career.
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The picture changed the political landscape of South Africa; it made a fortune for the news agencies of the world, but he got nothing from it for 22 years.  The iconic image has been on everything from billboards to T-shirts.
“The picture of Hector Pieterson destroyed my future in journalism. I couldn’t continue as a journalist because of that picture and I would never put my life in danger, I was forced to leave everything behind,” says Nzima.
Harassment from police forced Nzima to become a small bottle store owner in the small village Lilydale, in Bushbuckridge, in Mpumalanga. It took him 22 years of struggle to get his copyright back.
“The copyright of the Hector Pieterson Photo was given to me on the November 16, 1998 by Independent Newspapers Holdings Limited and was registered with Webber Wentzel Bowens Attorneys Notaries &amp; Conveyancers intellectual property lawyers in Johannesburg on July 20, 2000,” he says.
The day he risked his life for the picture is as clear as yesterday.
“As early as 6AM in the morning of June 16, I was covering a student march in Naledi High in Soweto with a colleague Sophie Tema. We found the students busy writing placards opposing new Bantu education laws. This followed a circular sent to the schools that Afrikaans will be the medium of instruction,” says Nzima.
When the march reached Morris Isaacson High, a student leader Tsietsi Mashinini addressed students from the top of a tree saying the march was to be a peaceful, says Nzima. Shortly after, armed police arrived in armoured vehicles and instructed all to disperse. The children sang Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika in defiance.
Nzima says the singing agitated a police commander who instructed his officers to open fire. The students ran and Nzima hid in a house.
“I got out from the house, the police had ceased firing, and I saw a little child falling down. There comes this tall boy Mbuyisa and picked him up. As Mbuyisa picked him up, I went with my camera. I was also shooting with my camera, under the shower of police bullets. Mbuyisa was running to the nearest car, the nearest press car was our Volkswagen Beetle. I managed to shoot six sequences of him carrying Hector. My colleague Sophie Tema opened the door and they put Hector inside. Hector was certified dead upon arriving in Phefeni Clinic,” says Nzima.
“I knew the police would come back for me, I wound the film and stashed it in my sock and then loaded another film. As I anticipated, the police came back and grabbed me after they ran away for some few minutes. They took my three cameras and exposed my films. When they thought they had destroyed the evidence, our driver Thomas Khoza rushed the film to The World office. The picture was published the next day.”
Nzima’s gallant work with his camera on that violent winter day in 1976 was to wreck his life. When police came knocking on his door, Nzima left his job in Johannesburg and ended up under house arrest in the remote town of Bushbuckridge, far from his family in Soweto.
“After two days I received a call from the station commander at John Vorster Square, he wanted to have a cup of coffee with me. Percy Qoboza was my editor at The World. He advised me to stay away from the police if I don’t want to come back as corpse.”
Qoboza told the commander to invite him, the editor, for tea instead. This led to a police instruction to shoot Nzima if they found him photographing, a police insider told him at the time.
In April 2011, South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma awarded Nzima with the Order of Ikhamanga for excellence in liberal art.
“If popularity was cash, I was going to tell you I am a millionaire or billionaire. Many people know this picture but some don’t know the man behind it. I was shocked in 2010 when I was invited in Berlin at a school called Hector Pieterson Schule. The school was renamed in celebration of the fall of The Berlin Wall. Germans compared their freedom to the South African independence.”
“Money was not that much, no rewards in cash but I had recognition from the state president. At the beginning I regretted [taking] this picture because this picture destroyed my journalistic career, I lost my job and my friends in Johannesburg. But now I am rejoicing because I am getting high publicity, I have become an icon in South Africa. Maybe one day I will reap a jackpot from some quarters.”
A Sam Nzima Foundation will be opened, including a school for photojournalists, in his hometown near Bushbuckridge. This is where Nzima has a makeshift darkroom that he uses to train school children in his village of Lilydale.
“After the release of Nelson Mandela in 1990, I was brave enough to pick up my camera and continue where I left, but all these years I was afraid to do that. The original camera that captured Hector Pieterson is still intact; I have kept it safe in those years.”
When Hillary Clinton visited South Africa for the first time, in the 1990s, she wanted to see Nzima at the Hector Pieterson Museum in Soweto. She offered to buy the camera, but Winnie Mandela advised Nzima against selling. She said it was the property of the state. Nzima also refused to donate his Pantex camera, with 50mm lens, to the ANC Women’s League.
“I was happy not to sell it, but if it was good money she was offering, I would have been happier to sell. It’s because it’s better enjoying my life when I can than keeping the camera. One day, I will show people of South Africa that this is a camera that brought their freedom. But the person who struggled for freedom gets nothing.”
“South Africans do not value me but I do get recognition from other countries. I remember in 2011 I was invited to exhibit my work in Belgium and address the parliament in Brussels. Parliamentarians showed interest in our history and the role I played in those days.”
Despite Nzima receiving lucrative offers from overseas for the camera, he says his conscience disapproves. It lives in his museum in Bushbuckridge.
“Now I cannot sell the camera, it has become the property of the state, it is our heritage. I have to consult with the politicians for a go-ahead; otherwise I will be frustrated again. If the government officials could learn that I had sold the camera overseas, they will ask me why I did it.”
Hector Pieterson was buried at Avalon Cemetery, in Soweto, and a museum in his memory was built near where he was shot, in 2002. His sister, Antoinette Sithole, the girl running alongside, is a curator at the museum and Makhubo was last traced in Nigeria. He went to exile after the photograph was published.
Every year on June 16, Nzima kneels and prays for the fallen schoolchildren of Soweto. He escaped with his life from the terrible day but his career didn’t.

The Sad Story Behind  The Picture That  Moved The World To Tears

One lazy Sunday in March 1886, on a farm in Langlaagte in what is now Johannesburg, Australian gold miner, George Harrison, stumbled upon a rock by a stream that contained gold. He declared his claim to the then government and soon after the area was declared open for mining – the ‘Witwatersrand Gold Rush’ began.
The gold rush built Johannesburg and made fortunes, these days poverty is the spur. Illegal gold mining is the running sore of the industry today. Poverty recruits illegal miners to live and work in dangerous abandoned shafts. What they find is worth much more then what their unknown employer pays them. Those that risk their lives in the dark and dusty underground call themselves Zama Zama (taking a shot at fortune).
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Illegal miners have no rights to mine, but feel that the act is a victimless crime. They believe there is nothing wrong with doing what they are because they are entering the abandoned mines on their own, risking their own lives.
Illegal mining in South Africa is on the rise.
“There is very limited access and control to what is actually happening underground and very limited control over the access points because we simply don’t know where they all are. And even if we do know, in some instances the mine would pour concrete into a redundant mine shaft, like a plug. But the guys (illegal miners) will mine right next to it, they would dig down around the concrete block and access the mines,” says Ben Coetzee from the Institute for Security Studies.
Illegal mining used to have little impact on legal mining but illegal miners have now moved into working mines. Sibanye Gold CEO, Neal Froneman, says illegal mining is turning into war. His mine was once sabotaged by illegal miners over Christmas and he even admits that some of his own miners have mined illegally on their days off.
“It’s a major problem, not only in abandoned mines but also in working mines. They have become very arrogant, they’re very organized, they are armed, they are aggressive, they threaten employees and blackmail them and they are replaced very quickly. You can arrest guys (illegal miners) and they are back tomorrow or somebody else is back tomorrow,” says Anton van Achterbergh, the Head of the Legal Department at the Chamber of Mines of South Africa.
Illegal gold mining is easier than you might think.
“Gold is visible and you can find it underground. Whenever there is an explosion, there will be gold dust that will accumulate on the ground or on the floor in the tunnels and there is always water in a mine, so it effectively rinses out the dust. In many mines the gold is actually laying where people are walking,” says Coetzee.
In South Africa it is illegal to be in the possession of raw gold. The syndicate chain of illegal mining has found a very simple and effective way of trading the stolen gold. Shop owners licensed to buy and sell a certain amount of gold, buy legal gold. They then buy illegal gold and refine it – which is very easy to do – and then mix it with the legal gold. This process makes it almost impossible to identify the illegal gold. Each nugget of pure gold has a unique fingerprint that identifies the origin of that gold. When you mix it with gold from all over the world, that fingerprint gets lost.
Illegal mining is driven by a large syndicate chain. This chain consists of five levels. The first level is the illegal miners, most of them immigrants. The second level is the buyers of the gold, who also recruit the illegal miners and provide them with tools. The third level sells the gold regionally. The fourth level sells nationally and the fifth level is the international buyers and distributors.
Border jumpers dominate illegal mining. According to the Chamber of Mines, 70% of all arrested illegal miners are illegal immigrants.
“If we can solve the illegal immigrant problem, illegal mining will go away, roughly,” says Van Achterbergh.
Another issue is the weakness of the law.
“In South Africa, to be charged with theft of something, you need to be caught with the possession thereof. When the guys (illegal miners) hear you coming they run away, so how do you prove they were stealing? Same as on the surface illegal mining, unless you find the gold in their possession it is very difficult,” says Van Achterbergh.
He says there have been many efforts to educate prosecutors about the theft of precious metal, allowing them to charge illegal miners for more than mere possession. Despite these efforts, there are holes in the justice system.
“I always tell the police the prosecution is as good as the investigation. If the investigation only shows so much, then what can I do if it only shows trespassing and not illegal mining?” says Anthea van der Byl from the National Prosecuting Authority.
“Police are afraid to go into these places. I would say it needs an international intervention, not just national.”
Police are also frustrated.
“It is a futile exercise, one might say, especially with the level ones and twos (in the syndicate chain),” says Lieutenant Colonel Herman Mahlangu from the South African Police Service.
Despite many initiatives to control the issue in the country, the road to a resolution is a long and winding one. Illegal mining may be a crime for South Africa’s economy, but for the illegal miners it feeds their families. With no qualifications and no experience, they turn to the inside of redundant mines looking for gold to give them a few rands to survive. In taking a shot at fortune, few strike the jackpot.

The Golden Chain With  A Rich Man At One End And A  Fool At  The Other

Oscar Pistorius, the South African Paralympic running champion and global icon, became an incarcerated man on a balmy day in late October. Long before the presiding judge, Thokozile Masipa, handed down her sentence, crowds formed in the jacaranda-lined street outside Pretoria’s North Gauteng High Court.
As Judge Masipa’s voice wafted to the street from live TV feeds outside the court, she reminded everyone that ‘sentencing is about achieving the right balance’. With these words, discontent grew. Many feared that they were not going to get their pound of flesh.
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Then the verdict: Pistorius was handed a three-year suspended sentence for discharging a firearm in a restaurant concurrently with a five-year custodial sentence for manslaughter. Legal experts claim that he must serve at least a sixth of his sentence to be eligible for parole. This means he could spend just 10 months behind bars followed by correctional supervision in the form of house arrest.
Golden Miles Bhudu, an activist from the South African Prisoners’ Organisation for Human Rights, was livid as the sentence was announced. He had been put behind bars, he says, for six years for a furniture warehouse robbery in the late 1980s. He explained the sentence to a pair of French tourists who looked confused.
“It is the first time in all these years for culpable homicide you get correctional supervision&#8230; he’s a rich man!”
Cries of injustice came in a score of tongues outside the courthouse. A placard lent silent support to Bhudu, “Are certain offenders more equal than others in the eyes of the law?”
Nathaniel Joy, a Ghanaian on his lunch break, chimed in.
“He’s a super-rich person and even the victim is from a poor part [of the country]. I can see now its politics!”
The South African justice system also came under fire.
“I think it’s weak, it can be manipulated with money,” says the young man as his friend nods in agreement.
Not everyone was of the same mind. Simphiwe Rabede, a government worker from Pretoria, thought that justice was done.
“I think it was a fair judgement after all the deliberation and the arguments presented in court, despite the public perception, it was a fair judgement.”
Sitting nearby, a lawyer on another matter with long blonde hair, who asked to remain anonymous, agreed.
“I think Judge Masipa gave a fair sentence in the eyes of the law,” she says.
A little over an hour after the sentence was passed, Arnold Pistorius, the uncle representing the family, spoke.
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“The court has handed down its judgement and we accept this judgement,” he told an army of journalists outside the High Court Chambers. He appealed to the public to do the same.
Minutes before, an armored police van battled through a crowd of activists, onlookers and journalists as it made its way to the nearby Kgosi Mampuru II prison where Pistorius is serving his custodial sentence for the culpable homicide of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, on Valentine’s Day in 2013.
After a month of speculation, prosecutors announced that they will appeal Judge Masipa’s decision, claiming that the sentence was ‘shockingly light’.

21/10/14:  The Day Oscar Went to Prison

Africa billionaires are lining up to put their money where their mouth is in the fight against Ebola.
At least five FORBES AFRICA cover millionaires are putting up to $50 million to fight the disease. It’s being seen as Africa solving its
own problems.
The millionaires include: Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote of Dangote Group; Strive Masiyiwa, the Founder and Chairman of global telecommunications group Econet Wireless; Patrice Motsepe, the Founder and Executive Chairman of African Rainbow Minerals; Jim Ovia, Chairman and Co-Founder of Zenith Bank and Mohammed Dewji, the CEO of Mohammed Enterprises Tanzania Limited.
The fund, called the Business-to-Rescue Fund, was launched on November 8  at the African Union (AU) headquarters in Addis Ababa, the first meeting between the AU and the Africa’s private sector.
“Africa is becoming conscious of synergies that exist between entrepreneurship and development and Econet Wireless Group has been involved in the fight against Ebola as early as April,” says Masiyiwa.
Masiyiwa said business was affected by everything that threatens life in the African economy.
“Our focus is the economy and well-being of our generation. The African people will not allow Ebola to persist like the HIV/Aids pandemic.”
Kola Karim, the Managing Director and CEO of Shoreline Energy International, says leading billionaires have set up a benchmark fund of between $30 million to $50 million.
“It’s unfortunate that the Ebola has caused this much pain without a quick response both from governments and businesses. It is the responsibility of the governments and the private sector to make interventions when serious problems like Ebola attack the region,” says Karim.
Political analyst at the University of Johannesburg’s Centre for the Study of Democracy, Gideon Chitanga, says entrepreneurs are playing a role of corporate social responsibility.
“Africa has seen a surge in the number of billionaires in the past decade and it is time that these billionaires start giving back to communities where they are generating their wealth from,” says Chitanga.

Forbes Millionaires  Shell Out  To Stop Ebola

For most of 2014, Thuli Madonsela’s name has been kicked around the political scene like a tin can.
The fight between her and the South African government is all about Nkandla – the private home of South African President Jacob Zuma that sits on a vast tract of land. It cost over R200 million ($18 million) of, supposedly, taxpayers’ money to renovate. The president claims to have taken out an R800,000 ($71,000) loan for the purposes of the renovations. Besides the thatched huts built for his family and the beautiful landscape of the KwaZulu-Natal province, its best feature, by far, is what has become known as the ‘fire pool’. It has been explained away by his spin doctors, for it is not a recreational swimming pool but a water reservoir in case of fire.
Who would be bold enough to investigate these allegations against the head of state? That woman is public protector Madonsela.
“I don’t see it as me versus the government, it’s my team versus maladministration. For any government, if they want to govern in perpetuity, maladministration is an enemy because your ability to govern, or the authority people give you to govern, is withdrawn one piece at a time if there is maladministration,” she says.
The investigation began in December 2011 when a citizen lodged a complaint to the public protector’s office regarding how the country was spending its money. A few months later, another citizen lodged a complaint against the president, under the Executive Members’ Ethics Act, accusing him of using money he was not entitled to. Madonsela had 30 days to respond.
“Firstly, when the complaint was made, I didn’t think that it was going against the president because procurement is not a presidential matter. So at no stage did I think there would be any direct involvement with the president.”
The public protector’s office compiled information from the ministers, some of whom were also under investigation. The investigation team began asking harder questions, which raised a few red flags.
“The minister of police said he was going to give us information, so we were expecting it. Then he said when he comes back from his honeymoon, he will give us the necessary information. When he came back he wrote us a letter saying that he doesn’t understand why we were doing this investigation because as ministers they have everything under control and they are investigating [the matter].”
“In reality most of the cases that take our time on a day-to-day basis are from ordinary people, who are just grappling with being denied one or another service. Usually people who are struggling with an ID or permanent residence, people who are struggling with a grant and also people who have been unfairly treated in employment situations in government and who can’t go to the CCMA, or can’t go to the public service commission, or who would go to those but the service processes take forever.”
The frenzy has thrust Madonsela in the public eye. Many people expect her to be a loud and aggressive woman.
“Some man once saw me and he seemed almost disappointed in meeting me, we were doing a walk about the mall and he said to me, ‘Oh aunty you’re just a little girl, I thought you were taller.’ Then I said to my team, ‘He always made me feel guilty that I’m not taller,’” she laughs.
In her spare time, when she’s not flexing her muscles, she enjoys reading magazines and listening to classical music. At home, she jokingly admits, her children often remind her that she is not the ‘PP’, but simply mom.
“I think other people fear for my family more than I do. My view on it, and this is the view my team takes, is that if anyone wanted to do anything wrong to me they would have done it at the early stages of this investigation. You don’t let the investigation complete and then you want to do something to someone because what would that achieve?”
After her term in office, Madonsela has set her sights on writing.
“When I finish, for a year or two, I would like to focus on writing, writing about the potential of this office [of the public protector], not just for South Africa, but for Africa and the world. It has enormous potential, but it’s not fully known, understood and exploited because it’s an office that has potential for transformative work.”

Category: Sometime in Africa

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