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- A Stuijt
- Retired South African medical journalist, ex-Sunday Times of Johannesburg.
Nelson Mandela’s tribal king wants independent state
17:50 | 
Posted by
A Stuijt |
King Dalindyebo of the abaThembu plans to withdraw his support from SA government on January 6
2009-12-23 MOUNT FRERE, Eastern Cape. The king of the abaThembu tribe, claiming political persecution after he was sentenced to jail for grievously violent crimes, plans to severe his support for the ANC-regime and form an independent state on January 6, 2010. He heads the tribe which also includes Nelson Mandela. The king also is a former operative in the ANC’s military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe. His announcement was made on Tuesday in a statement issued by his lawyer Votani Majola. The King ‘s titles and names are Inkosi Enkhulu Buyelekhaya Zwelinbanzi Dalindyebo.
Traditional ties are strong
Nelson Mandela’s grandson Mandla Mandela, left, was officially installed as head of the Mvezo Traditional Council on April 16 2007 by this very same King Dalindyebo in the Transkei, the Xhosa homeland. South Africa, with its 11 official languages, has a multitude of ethnic people and groupings and such often very intricate and complicated traditional ties are strong especially in rural areas.
Lawyer Votani Majola’s statement said Dalindyebo’s trial was ‘in fact political persecution, driven by the African National Congress and aimed at toppling the king and installing a ‘puppet leader’.”
The King’s statement followed an earlier ultimatum that President Jacob Zuma publicly apologise to the abaThembu tribe for the “humiliation” of the king, Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo, in court. The Justice for King Dalindyebo Campaign, which Majola heads, had also demanded that all charges against the king be scrapped and that the government pay R80 billion in compensation. Dalindeybo was sentenced to jail by an Mthatha judge earlier this month for offences including culpable homicide, kidnapping, arson and assault with intent to commit grievous bodily harm.
The King is on bail pending appeal. In the statement on Tuesday Majola said the abaThembu would “withdraw from the South African government” on January 6 to form an independent state. This was an “executive decision” by the king.
“The official withdrawal notice will be delivered to the Parliament of the Republic of South Africa in Cape Town on the 06/01/2010 at midday by the delegation of AbaThembu to be led by His Majesty King Dalindyebo,” said Majola. This would be followed by talks on transitional arrangements which it was anticipated that the South African government would finance. Zuma had been notified, Majola said.
He said the state of Thembuland would include at least Kwazulu-Natal, the Eastern, Western and Northern Cape, and parts of the Free State and Gauteng. The task team said in a statement released last week that it had information that suggested that the abaThembu were the largest tribe in South Africa with estimated members “in excess of 10 million or so”.
“There is also information that suggests that about 60% of the land in South Africa legitimately belongs to AbaThembu,” it said. “Johannesburg and Durban are among the cities that are built on our land. We have no reason to disbelieve this information.”
- It said Dalindyebo’s trial was in fact political persecution, driven by the African National Congress and aimed at toppling the king and installing a “puppet leader”.
The criminal charges against Dalindyebo stemmed from violence against his subjects in the Tyhalara area in the early 1990s, during which a woman and children were kidnapped, homes burned and youths assaulted, of whom one died.
Nelson Mandela’s grandson Mandla was installed as head of Mvezo Traditional Council by King Dalindyebo:
Nelson Mandela’s grandson Mandla Mandela was officially installed as head of the Mvezo Traditional Council on April 16 2007 by King Dalindyebo in the Transkei, the Xhosa homeland with its rolling hills and turquoise huts. The ceremony was a colorful affair with at least 10 oxen slaughtered for the guests' enjoyment. South Africa, with its 11 official languages, has a multitude of ethnic people and groupings and traditional ties are strong especially in rural areas.
"I will be living among my people and I look forward to assisting with the numerous challenges that we face including social, poverty and health issues," Mandla Mandela said in the statement. The country's Constitution protects traditional laws and customs, and such Houses of Traditional Leaders act in an advisory capacity to the government.
"Monarchy and tribal leadership have a substantial role to play in the continued democratization of the country and I am thankful that this role will allow me an opportunity to follow in my grandfather's footsteps," Mandla Mandela said at the ceremony, also attended by his famous grandfather.
http://uqconnect.net/~zzhsoszy/states/southafrica/thembu.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article1662634.ece
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Fired Afrikaner cop Eugene Clarence wants his job back
The skilled crime-prevention unit cop, ordered to recover the service-pistol of the berserker, drunken inspector Steve Thoka, was fired: although the inspector was shot dead to save the lives of four police officers and members of the public…
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Dec 24 2009 -- 
Five years after crime-prevention SAPS member Eugene Clarence, picture, was fired for allegedly shooting dead a dangerously drunken armed colleague, SAPS Inspector Steve Thoka, he’s still fighting to get his job back, reports Sonja Carstens of Beeld newspaper.
Clarence won his appeal against a negative Labour Court ruling -- and now he’s waiting for his case to be put on the rolls of the Supreme Court of Appeals, said his legal representative Werner Kruger, who submitted the transcripts for the appeal case this month.
“I want to be back on my police post by next Christmas. It’s all I know, it’s all I want to do, I am a policeman in heart and soul,’ he told Beeld newspaper. The SAPS initially wanted to charge him with murder, but the police-forensics tests were unable to link Clarence’s service-pistol to the shrapnel in the dead inspector’s skull. The SAPS then fired him after refusing to accept this vital bit of forensic evidence.
The Labour Court documents showed that Clarence was amongst four SAPS members of the Pretoria West police station who on 12 November 2004 were ordered by their seniors to chase down Inspector Steve Thoka and remove his service pistol. Thoka had been sent home from his job earlier because he was reported on duty while very drunk. The police inspector then pointed his service-pistol towards members of the public in Church street while he was driving home. The four colleagues, all members of the crime-prevention unit, were then ordered to go and retrieve the drunken inspector’s service pistol that night.
After a search, they found Inspector Thoka hiding out in a field; using light flares to locate him in the pitch-dark. Inspector Thoka, according to the statements submitted by the four police officers, had then pointed his gun towards them; they had fired two warning shots and had also repeatedly shouted at him to put down his gun. Clarence said he had ‘decided in a split-second’ to shoot Thoka, firing a bullet across a distance of 36,7 metres. Inspector Thoka was declared dead at the scene.
Clarence initially was charged with murder – however the director of public prosecutions then decided against this when ballistics tests by the police forensics division were unable to prove that his service pistol had fired the lethal shot which hit Thoka. At this point, Clarence was fired by the SAPS when an internal investigation refused to accept this crucial forensic evidence.
- Clarence then lodged an appeal against this decision – demanding that the police forensic evidence be accepted in this case. An arbiter at the Sectoral council for security and safety then ruled in his favour, issuing an to the SAPS to re-appoint the policeman to his job – retroactively from the day he was fired.
The SAPS in turn lodged an appeal against this arbiter’s decision in the Labour Court – and in this appeal, Labour Court judge J Francis then sent the case back to the Sectoral council ordering the arbiter to review their order to reappoint Clarence. Judge Francis noted in his Labour Court ruling that: ‘it should have been clear to Clarence that Thoka had not meant to shoot the policemen although pointing his gun at them. “ Judge Francis also ruled that it ‘had not been necessary to arrest Inspector Thoka nor chase him down’.
Clarence’s lawyer maintains in the appeal documents that the Judge made a judicial error by failing to rule that the policeman had carried out a ‘statutory obligation and duty’ to obey the orders of his seniors to recover Insp. Thoka’s gun, and that the Judge had also erred when he failed to rule that the policeman had acted in self-defence (of himself and his colleagues) when they were ordered to find Thoka after the drunken police inspector had pointed his service pistol at members of the public in Church Street.
http://www.justice.gov.za/sca/
Copy and paste the following – and email to your friends with an appeal to support this police officer, who was fired only for doing his duty…
Fired Afrikaner cop Eugene Clarence wants his job back
Clarence won his appeal against a negative Labour Court ruling -- and now he’s waiting for his case to be put on the rolls of the Supreme Court of Appeals, said his legal representative Werner Kruger, who submitted the transcripts for the appeal case this month. http://censorbugbear-reports.blogspot.com/2009/12/fired-afrikaner-cop-eugene-clarence.html
Boycot: First National Bank refuses bursaries for whites
‘Black double-earners qualify: but white single-moms earning less than R100,000 do not…
2009-12-24 The First National Bank in South Africa is accused of racism and discrimination for providing financial help to educate the children of their lower-income workers (earning less than R100,000) – but not if they are white. Solidarity trade union’s Dirk Hermann commented that he wasn’t using the word ‘boycot’ as yet, and that it ‘was up to individuals to decide whether they still should support a bank which does not share one’s own value system’… http://www.br.co.za/index.php?from=rss_Business%2520Report&fArticleId=5296888
A campaign was immediately launched on Facebook to boycot FNB -- and from its responses from both white and black customers, their are many vows to close their accounts: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=251604741398&ref=mf&v=info
Another campaign was also yesterday against the Old Mutual insurance company for supporting the Mugabe-regime, after an earlier successful campaign to boycot Nestle products – and thus forcing Nestle company to stop buying milk from a farm owned by Grace Mugabe, wife of the Zimbabwean dictator. http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=3209058&op=1&view=all&subj=1026941238&id=685623294#/group.php?gid=178483203846&ref=mf
The FNB rised the ire of its employees after sending around an electronic newsletter to all its employees stating that while they are committed to ‘provide an education for all’, only ‘black workers children’ will qualify for the company’s financial assistance. Their definition of ‘black’ is “African, Indian, coloured and Chinese’, and all such employees earning less than R100,000 annually can apply for financial aid to help educate their children.
Trade union Solidarity demands that FNB review this policy, commenting that ‘the bank is giving a black Christmas stocking to its white workers’.
‘Many white female employees are single moms earning less than R100,000 and also struggle to pay the school fees:’
One FNB-employee who does not want to be identified for fear of victimisation, said the bank’s initiative is ‘unacceptable.’ “There are many white women at FNB who earn less than R100,000, are single parents and also struggle to keep their heads above water. Those people also struggle to pay school-fees, but cannot apply for help only because they are white’.
Some workers were very upset when the bank announced its scheme, she said.
- “This will also cause a great deal of malcontent among the employees -- because some black workers qualify for earning less than R100,000 individually while their spouses earn more. So although such double-earners do not need this money as urgently, they still qualify purely based on their skin-colour. This is blatant racial discrimination in the worst degree,’ the employee ‘s husband told Beeld.
Solidarity trade union deputy chief Dirk Hermann said the First National Bank has ‘clearly bowed down to political correctness and refuses to admit the reality in which South Africans find themselves. The bank’s decision to exclude low-income white workers from this educational-aid scheme, is based on the government’s racial ideologies. It also proves that big companies cannot be trusted to help protect democracy,’ he pointed out.
“The FNB took this decision with the government’s policies in their mindset, with the idea that everyone ‘must become black’ Big companies submit to the ruling ideology, not whether it is ethically acceptable or not. “The citizens have to take responsibility by calling this bank to order,’ he said.
Solidarity is lodging a formal complaint with the Human Rights Commission and also is awaiting a legal opinion before deciding whether this matter can be raised in a law suit at the Equality Court, said Herman.
“It is an individual choice whether or not a bank shares your own value-system,’ he said. “If the bank does not do that, it may be time to consider switching banks’. Beeld newspaper approached Ms Sam Moss of its holding company FirstRand for comment but had not received it by the time of going to press.http://www.beeld.com/Content/Suid-Afrika/Nuus/1928/14a67f7db4314458b499878f4abffb12/24-12-2009-03-54/Banke_se_beurse_nie_vir_wittes
Hester Johanna Botha: is this your daughter?
Austrian athlete Monika Göllner is looking for her Afrikaner mom – do you know her?
South Africa -- Austrian high-jumper Monika Göllner is looking for help in tracing her Afrikaner mom while she’s in the high-altitude town of Potchefstroom, training for next year’s European championships, reports Beeld newspaper.
Monika Göllner (35, dob: 23 December 1974) last saw her mom, Hester Johanna Botha of Witbank, at the age of two. She should now be 53 years old, said Monika in an interview with the Afrikaans newspaper. “We have completely lost contact. I don’t know whether she remarried nor whether she lives now.” Her mother met her Austrian dad Gerhard while he was working as an engineer in Witbank. After their marriage in South Africa, she went to Austria with him but had difficulty in adjusting to the country. “When I was 18 months old, my mother brought me to South Africa. She told my dad it was for a holiday, but she refused to return to Austria. He fetched me and divorced my mother,’ said Ms Göllner.
She also has a younger brother, Gerhard junior, who was only a few months old and who was left behind in Austria, she said. Her father placed an advertisement in a local newspaper to try and locate her mom when she was ten years old. This drew a response from her grandmother, surnamed Jacobs, as well as from another family member, and she also received a card from her mother. However all these documents have since gone missing, she said.
“the Bothas lived on a farm and the Jacobs family worked at a mine. That’s all I know,’ said Göllner. “When I was younger, I was angry with my mom. But as I get older I become increasingly curious about her. She is a part of myself which I do not know. Perhaps we share the same character-traits. I really would like to know.’
Anyone who could help Ms Göllner trace her South African family, can phone the Willows Garden Hotel at telephone 0 018 297 6285 or her trainer, Mr Roland Gusenbauer, at telephone 0043 664 301 4035.
Göllner had been in temporary retirement from high-jumping for a few years after participating in various large athletics competitions during the 1990s. Her personal best height was 1,92m. http://www.beeld.com/Content/Suid-Afrika/Nuus/1928/ab3df474c25f4f9aabc50fe1df2e057b/24-12-2009-03-54/Hester_Johanna_Botha_Is_di%C3%A9_jou_dogter