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Not so Bright Matonga

"Our policy was not to drive out white commercial farmers. Its never been our policy..."

(Talking on BBC World News - 24 April 2005)

Bright is your average Mr. Nice Felon. Here are a few fantastic articles on the great buffoon:

White woman joins eviction mob

Focus on Zimbabwe Crisis

PETA THORNYCROFT

In a bizarre twist to the forced removals of Zimbabwe's farmers, a white woman, believed to be British, took part in the eviction of a farm couple this week.

The woman, Anne Matonga, in her early 30s, screamed at Monica Schultz: "We are taking back the land you stole from us!"

Matonga is married to Bright Matonga, 35, a Zimbabwean propagandist. He worked as a sports reporter in London for the BBC but was recently recalled to Zimbabwe at the behest of Information Minister Jonathan Moyo to work for the state-controlled Herald newspaper, then the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation before being put in charge of the national bus company.

Vincent Schultz had been wrongfully arrested as the seizure of his farm had been ruled invalid on a legal technicality. Nevertheless, he was still in prison, pending a bail application, and his wife was alone on the farm on Sunday when the Matongas arrived and began hurling abuse at her.

"She [Anne Matonga] was rude, saying we had stolen her land. I thought it strange as she was white, and looked and sounded British," Monica Schultz said on Thursday.

Schultz was released without charges being laid on Monday when a magistrate ruled that he had not defied an eviction order to leave his farm by August 8, as decreed by President Robert Mugabe's government.

Then on Tuesday, Bright Matonga returned to the farm - this time with members of Mugabe's militia. "He told us he was pissed-off, very pissed-off, to find us still at home," Schultz said. "He threatened to return with a battalion. The police advised us to leave."

Police had a list of wanted farmers at a roadblock on Thursday, and Schultz feared, after his eviction in the morning, that he would be picked up again. The final straw for the distraught couple came when notorious militant, Joseph Chinotimba, who together with "war veterans" invaded foreign companies in Harare last year, arrived on the farm with Matonga and told workers they no longer worked for Schultz.

Schultz, 57, and his wife fled the farm in terror and are sheltering at neighbours. They both wept as they wondered what the future held for them.

Schultz said: "We will have to leave. I want peace. Out of Africa. Somewhere where Monica and I can relax and lead a family life, without our ears being tuned for vehicles, for shouting. It's madness, it's a nightmare.

"Living on a farm today is stressful . . . You are the head of the family, the head of the farm, you have to show your face, but when there are 300 people at your gate . . . Do you know how terrifying it is to walk down to your gate?

"I want somewhere I can go with my family, and have law and order."

Monica Schultz, who was born on the farm she has been forced to leave, said: "If peace prevailed we would love to stay on the farm, to grow old and die there. And we have a lot of workers there, some lovely people who worked for my mother, have been there for 50 odd years. Now they have literally nothing."

Forced to stop growing crops nearly two years ago by Mugabe's supporters, the farming couple were restricted to growing roses in greenhouses.

The 11 million roses annually exported to Amsterdam won't be picked again.

Some of the 135 permanent workers have fled the farm.

Matonga, who has a BSc (Hons) in Media Production and Technology from London's Greenwich University, has left militia to guard his new farm.

The Matongas were not available for comment.

--

Bureaucratic heart of darkness

By Marian L. Tupy
April 16, 2006

Sometimes even the most pessimistic observer of African affairs is forced to admit to being surprised just how low a particular African regime has sunk in its treatment of its own people. The latest chapter in the tragic story that is Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe has all the usual ingredients: incompetence, callousness, greed and barefaced lies.
Zimbabwe's economic meltdown has been so impoverishing that the women of Zimbabwe can no longer afford to buy even the most basic hygienic products. Poor substitutes lead to infections that can be fatal in a country where health care has collapsed. International donors have tried to provide relief, but they have encountered a major obstacle: Zimbabwe's officialdom.
In 2000, Robert Mugabe embarked on a course that led his country to economic ruin. By expropriating Zimbabwe's farmers, he destroyed his country's ability to feed itself. Famine rages in the countryside, despite efforts of international aid agencies. Mr. Mugabe's evisceration of private property rights in agriculture fatally undermined other sectors of the economy, such as manufacture and financial services.
With private sector production rapidly declining, Zimbabwe can no longer sell enough goods overseas and earn the foreign currency it needs. Most imported items, including gas, have become nearly impossible to obtain. The government has also lost most of the revenue it needs to pay the wages in the public sector. It therefore resorted to printing money. Inflation runs at 600 percent, and doctors, nurses, lawyers and businessmen are fleeing in droves. More than 2 million Zimbabweans found a new home in South Africa alone.
One of the more mundane, but telling examples of skyrocketing poverty in the country is the fact even the most basic everyday necessities, such as feminine hygienic pads, have become a luxury most Zimbabwean women can no longer afford. The country has 80 percent unemployment. People who are lucky enough to work earn a meager salary that averages $21 per month. A month's supply of pads, unfortunately, costs $5.
Use of unsanitary substitutes has spread disease. The Zimbabwean Congress of Trades Unions has requested, and secured, donations of free hygiene pads from donors in South Africa and Great Britain.
In a farcical twist, the Zimbabwean authorities refused to award the shipments duty-free treatment, demanding the cargo first be quality-tested. It may seem astonishing that government officials in a country undergoing social and economic implosion should think twice before exempting the much-needed products from an import tariff or that they should have the nerve to demand quality-testing for imports from a comparatively affluent and well-run country like South Africa. But bureaucrats have no shame and in Africa doubly so.
After all, Zimbabwe is a country where life expectancy fell from 56 years in 1993 to 30 years in 2005, yet where the government taxes foreign medicines at an average rate of 22? percent.
No doubt, greed also plays a role. Africa has an army of customs officials, whose job it is to collect import duties. With wages low and deteriorating rapidly in real value due to inflation, customs officials rely on bribes to speed shipments through or look the other way altogether.
Thus, when a group of South African churches and nongovernmental organizations raised money to purchase emergency aid for the people of Zimbabwe in the winter months of 2005, the Zimbabwean customs officials demanded that import tariffs be paid. South African blankets and food languished at the Johannesburg airport for weeks.
Worse, the government's Propaganda Ministry is in full swing denying that anything out of the ordinary is happening in Zimbabwe. The deputy minister of information, Bright Matonga, told the BBC's "Focus on Africa" that people were "creating a crisis that does not exit."
"The Zimbabwe government won't sit back and let women suffer. We care about our women," Mr. Matonga said. Perish the thought. In fact, Zimbabwe's government must hold a record for barefaced lying.

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Playing Dirty?

DA investigation reveals ANC food/house for votes scandal
Statement issued by: Douglas Gibson, Chief Whip
Thursday, February 23, 2006

[NOTE: ALL DETAILED EVIDENCE AVAILABLE ON REQUEST]

I have today submitted four cases of suspected electoral fraud to IEC Chief Electoral Officer Advocate Pansy Tlakula.

The DA has concrete evidence that suggests that the ANC is in contravention of the Electoral Code of Conduct (Schedule 1 of the Local Government Municipal Election Act 2000). Section 9 (2) (iii) of the Schedule states: “No person may offer any inducement or reward to another person to vote or not to vote, or to vote or not to vote in any particular way.”

The DA can reveal four cases, with supporting evidence, that the ANC is using promises of food and houses to win votes in the 2006 local election.

1. Western Cape

In the Western Cape, the DA has evidence that the ANC is using the politically-sensitive issue of housing to trick voters into voting for the ANC. The DA has in its possession sworn affidavits from voters that have been promised a house if they vote for the ANC. They include the following sworn testimonies:

[Voter X] from Bishop Lavis:
“Washeilah Arendse from ANC told me that I can get a house by 2007 if I vote for ANC – She said this on the 9 February at Valhalla Community Centre. She was sitting with the housing list forms.”

[Voter Y] from Valhalla Park:
“They promise me. Mr Hendricks at Elsie’s River Civic that if I bring the necessary documents I will get a house in 2007.”

[Voter Z] from Valhalla Park:
“The ANC promised me a house if I vote for ANC they said they will give it to me in one month. A person who told me this was at Parkville Primary School on Sunday at 16h05 afternoon. This person was working with the housing waiting list forms.”

2. Limpopo

A DA councillor in Limpopo reported that on February 17, an ANC councillor was confronted by frustrated residents of an informal settlement in the area. Some of these people had been waiting for a house in the area for ten years. The next day housing application forms were circulated in the area with the instruction that they were to be completed and returned the next day. A copy of the form is available on request.

3. KwaZulu-Natal

In Kwazulu-Natal, ANC canvassers have been handing out ‘application for housing’ forms emblazoned with ANC insignia. The DA has in its possession such a form that was handed out in Phoenix. Similar forms were also reportedly dished out in Verulam and Chatsworth.

In KwaDakuza, KwaZulu-Natal, DA MP Mark Lowe laid a charge of election fraud against the ANC with the SA Police Services and has reported them to the IEC. This was after Lowe received reports of numerous instances of ANC officials handing out food parcels to voters in an attempt to bribe them to vote for the ANC.

4. Eastern Cape

In the Eastern Cape, DA councillor Annette Steyn reported that on January 24 food parcels were delivered to Venterstrand (EC144). An ANC campaign truck carrying ANC canvassers chanting “the ANC delivers” accompanied the arrival of the food parcels. The same thing happened in nearby Burgersdorp that same afternoon.

* * *

ANC intimidation often succeeds in deterring people from laying formal complaints or going public when the ANC offers a bribe in return for a vote. It is therefore more than likely that these four cases are the tip of a far bigger iceberg.

As it is, this evidence suggests that the ANC has realised that twelve years of failed service delivery will hurt it at the polls and has resorted to cheating. This is an insult to every South African voter and the very fabric of our democracy.

Source

Notes by Metuo Dedecus:
The ANC has promised houses to voters since 1994 and persons known to have not voted ANC usually have more difficulty in getting houses or benefits from local government.

JZ in ya woman?

A few great stats on South African rape:

A woman raped every 26 seconds
40% of rapists known to victim
7% of reported cases lead to conviction
Source: People Opposing Woman Abuse

Check out: Friends of Jacob Zuma site

Eskom

Koeberg White Outs or is that Wipe Outs?

Electrical Fault in Cape Town

Can somebody explain the bulls**t which was written reporting this:

The entire Western Cape was without power early on Sunday following faults on transmission lines because of misty conditions and residual pollution from recent fires.

Why don't they just say...

"...we have an overloaded system, because we give electricity away for free, and sponge off taxpayers..."

Or would that be wrong. Would it be wrong not to tell a lie?

Zuma and the People who Support Him

In a country with a so called freedom of speech, South Africa, is declining into a commentary of noise and nonsense. With high levels of unemployment, crime and a pandemic of AIDS, the situation inside the country is not as rosy as it all seems to be. Tax payers are paying high taxes and paying extra costs to remain secure. The police are largely ineffective against crime, in certain parts of the country. And when you set up a budget with billions of rands spent on the “Renaissance Fund” you know somebody’s getting paid off, with money the police deserve. For a supposedly transparent government a great deal of information is incorrect.

Crime statistics are one of these failures.

Indeed, one has to wonder what the future holds for South Africa. Racism is on the rise. There is hatred by the government for many of its taxpaying population, whom seem to demand decent outcomes for their payments.

Corruption in country is on the rise. Government doesn’t seem that interested in removing bars to foreign investment, such as certain labour laws. South Africa could be the next Zimbabwe.

And if Zuma is guilty or not of rape, don’t you think the multitude present something more worrying in society when they harrass the woman trying to try Zuma of purportedly raping her? And don’t you think its worrying when judges refuse to sit a case, because of fear of being tarnished as honest citizens or as being white racists?

Photograph modified from the Washington Post picture

Perhaps I’m being pessimistic. Welcome to South Africa. Not as simple as it seems.